BANGOR – Don’t be surprised if there’s a brief look of confusion on the faces of Scott Graffam and his players the next time they see the LED displaying “26” on the Bangor Auditorium scoreboard.

Until yesterday, 26 was a lucky number only for Wade Boggs and the first 25 passengers on an overbooked flight aboard a 25-seat puddle-jumper as far as the Vikings were concerned. The number only brought back painful memories for them.

Twenty-six was the total number of points Oxford Hills scored as the No. 1 seed in last year’s nightmarish upset to Bangor in the Eastern A semifinals. It was barely more than half what the fourth-seeded Rams scored that night.

Facing the Rams of Cony in this year’s quarterfinal, Oxford Hills found 26 to be a much more pleasant number, simply because it wasn’t on their side of the scoreboard. The 30 that was on their side of the scoreboard wouldn’t normally be particularly pleasing to Graffam either, but it was a sight for sore eyes yesterday.

“The first game’s always the hardest one up here, although, last year, the second one was the hardest for us,” Graffam said.

This is the last year the Eastern A tournament will be held at what’s known as “The Mecca,” and no one is happier about that fact than Graffam. Even before the Bangor blow-out, Graffam was ready to have the tournament blow out of town. He was the most vocal among the KVAC coaches who lobbied the MPA for the tournament site to be changed to Augusta.

Graffam’s dislike for the Aud is understandable. He has had some of the most explosive teams in Eastern A in recent years, but something about this place turns them into a wet firecracker.

Is it because the disdain he has for the Auditorium trickles down to his players, Graffam was asked.

“No, I don’t think it’s that,” he responded. “I don’t know what it is.”

The players are equally perplexed.

“We don’t know what it is. We just struggle,” senior guard Josh Powell said. “I’m not nervous when I come in here anymore. It’s like any other court.”

It was more like the home court at OHCHS yesterday, thanks to fans who made the long trip up and outnumbered the Cony partisans, minus the band, by about 3-to-1.

Standing among the cheering section was Corey Tielinen, a Mr. Basketball finalist last year who led the Vikings through a 17-1 regular season, the best record in school history, then suffered a hip injury early in the Bangor game that rendered him ineffective.

Tielinen was indirectly responsible for the Vikings holding Cony to 26 points, not by leading the cheers, but by replicating Cony standout Doug Joerrs this past week in practice.

“We had Tielinen come in and pretend he was Joerss. We were lucky he was home on break,” Graffam said. “We wanted to have somebody that was a big kid and would post up and was a good player. We did a good job on Tielinen and I thought we did a good job today on Joerss.”

Powell and Corey Saunders usually drew the assignment to guard Tielinen in practice, and as well as they did then, they probably didn’t frustrate him as much as they did Joerss, who tallied just two field goals and five points.

“Pretty much all we heard all week was Joerss,” Powell said. “(Practicing on Tielinen) helped a little bit.”

Maybe the Vikings can coax Tielinen into missing a couple of classes next week and have him do a Sean McNally impersonation. The 6-7 Gardiner sophomore is four inches taller than Joerss, but presents similar match-up difficulties with his ability to score inside and outside.

And while they’re at it, maybe they can have Tielinen wear the number 26 in practice. It’s not McNally’s number, but a little more positive reinforcement wouldn’t hurt.

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer who can be reached at [email protected].