AUBURN – The square footage of Lisbon’s home court doesn’t meet Maine Principals’ Association standards, so Tuesday night’s Western Class B prelim had to be moved to Kirk Hall on the campus of Central Maine Community College.
Yet despite the bigger surroundings, neither team had much room to breathe.
Tenth-seeded Poland made the plays it had to early, then held off a frantic comeback attempt by No. 7 Lisbon, to pick up a 40-39 win before a bipartisan crowd.
The Knights (10-9) will face second-seeded Cape Elizabeth at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the Cumberland County Civic Center.
“It’s a great feeling going down to Portland for the first time and being a young school, it’s great,” said senior Chad Westleigh, who led the Knights with 14 points.
Trailing by nine midway through the fourth quarter, Lisbon (13-6) unleashed a 1-2-2 full-court trap that stymied the Knights virtually the rest of the way.
“We don’t do a whole lot of fullcourt stuff,” Lisbon coach Doug Sautter said when asked why he didn’t unveil the press sooner. “We knew they were kind of suspect ball-handlers but energy-wise, I don’t think we could have maintained it on this big court. We still had our chances doing what we did.”
The Greyhounds got two free throws by Brendan McGivney and back-to-back 3-pointers by Mike Wilkins (game-high 15 points) in the course of 42 seconds to make it 34-33.
Following a time out, the Knights broke the press for the first and only time as Tyler Merchant fed Joe Douglass for a layup that turned into a three-point-play that made it a two-possession game.
“When we’re in our right spots and we run our press breaker right, we get lay-ups,” Poland coach Chris Willer said. “We only did it the one time, but the one time was big.”
Merchant followed with a jumper for a 39-33 lead with two minutes left. Wilkins converted two free throws to pull Lisbon back within four, then Douglass made one-of-two from the line for Poland’s last point with 1:44 to go. A turnover off the press and then a putback by Levi Ervin and a lay-up by Ervin off a nice pick-and-roll with Wilkins made it 40-39 with 32.9 seconds left.
The Greyhounds had numerous chances to win the game from there. After their press forced the last of Poland’s 23 turnovers on the night, McGivney missed a short jumper, but Ervin kept the ball alive, secured the offensive rebound and got fouled. He missed both, but Lisbon eventually got the ball under its own basket with 11.1 seconds left.
Chris Brunick’s jumper for the lead missed and Merchant was sent to the free throw line with six seconds left. He missed both. Brunick rebounded the second miss and threw it to Maxx Hathaway, whose desperate attempt from half-court ricocheted high off the glass just before the buzzer sounded.
The Knights put the Greyhounds in catch-up mode early by making six of their first seven shots to jump out to an 8-1 lead. Lisbon shot just 19 percent from the floor in the first half and trailed by as much as 11.
The Greyhounds did a good job containing 6-foot-7 center Jon Lecznar (eight points, 13 rebounds, five blocks) after a quick start, but fortunately for the Knights, Westleigh found the hot hand, scoring all seven of their points in the second quarter as they took a 21-14 lead into halftime.
“Jon and I have been playing together forever, and we know that if one of us starts to dip a little bit, the other one’s got to pick up the slack,” Westleigh said. “I’m not the biggest post player in the world, but I like to think I’m quick and I’m pretty intelligent, so when it comes to that, me and the big man work well together.”
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