It’s taking some getting used to, but the teams in Western Class B are making themselves at home at Cumberland County Civic Center.

This is the first time the tournament is being played at the Portland arena after decades at the Augusta Civic Center. The Maine Principals Association made the change to make the tournament’s location more geographically friendly to the southern Maine schools that dominate Western B.

The biggest adjustment for players at the CCCC is the shooting background. The dark seats and low lighting give the cavernous arena virtually no background for shooters to reference.

Mountain Valley senior guard Marcus Palmer said it is a stark contrast to the Augusta Civic Center, which is also deeper than your average high school gym but well-lit with a blue bright blue background and bleachers that sit about 25 feet from the end of the court when pulled out.

“Augusta is just so lit. You have the glare and everything,” Palmer said. “The back of the backboards here are dark. It’s a lot different.”

Some teams were more concerned with the size of the floor at the CCCC than the shooting background. The court is regulation college size and longer than most high school gym floors.

“We practiced on a bigger court and that helped us prepare for the change in size,” said Gray-New Gloucester junior Olivia Reed, whose team had a session at Central Maine Community College last week.

Finding their range

He’s a big guy with a smile and a heart that seem to match, so appropriately, Rangeley boys’ basketball coach Tom Philbrick wasn’t taking any credit for a Saturday halftime talk that sounded like it featured the words of legendary locker room giant Knute Rockne channeled through late comedian Chris Farley.

“They have really emerged as a team in the last few games. They won the game,” Philbrick said after a 66-46 victory over traditional East-West Conference nemesis Buckfield. “There wasn’t a lot of coaching going on from the sideline.”

Senior forward Justin Gallant credited Philbrick’s animated soliloquy on rebounding for lighting the Lakers’ fire, helping them rip open a close game in the second half.

Perhaps Philbrick’s smartest move was scheduling the Lakers to participate in a holiday tournament at the civic center.

David Jensen was the lone Rangeley player with on-court experience at the cavernous ACC, when the Lakers qualified for the tournament two years ago. Visiting the tournament floor gave the Lakers a chance to learn about the open air and shooting sight lines that are drastically different from the shoebox gyms that are common in Class D.

Jensen and Gallant combined for 46 points and 42 rebounds in Rangeley’s first-round win. The Lakers’ big men will be challenged Wednesday in the semifinals by Richmond, a team that prefers a run-and-gun tempo and wields an interior x-factor in 6-foot-10 sophomore sixth man Marc Zaharchuk.

The Lakers haven’t made it to the regional final since a young Gavin Kane was their coach in 1989. Rangeley routed Deer Isle-Stonington in the state game that year.

Early entrance

The change in the Western D tournament Saturday made things easier for Rangeley fans. Typically the boys’ quarterfinals have been Saturday in Augusta and the girls’ first round followed Monday and Tuesday mornings. Because of a change to accommodate the observance of the Sabbath by Pine Tree Academy, the Lakers had both teams playing Saturday.

“I think it’s a great thing for Class D basketball,” said Rangeley coach Heidi Deery. “To have the girls and boys on the same day, I’ve been asking for that and hoping that someday it would happen. For our remote school, to be able to come and support both teams on the same day, that’s huge.”

Both Rangeley teams were victorious and had ample support to kick off the playoffs. The boys’ advance to Wednesday’s semifinal while the girls play Thursday.

It allowed for an early quarterfinal game for the Lakers girls. Having been the top seed the last four years, Rangeley is accustomed to playing Tuesday and playing the semifinal two days later. The change shortened the wait beforehand and gives the Lakers time between playoff games, something Deery welcomes. Of course, her players realize it means more practice.

“Personally, I’d rather just go because I don’t like running in practice,” said senior guard Nicole Crupi, “but it will gives us time to go over film and just practice.”

Twenty candles

Buckfield didn’t get the anniversary present it was hoping for in a Western Class D girls’ quarterfinal loss to Kents Hill, but Bucks assistant coaches Kate Buck and Julie (Cooper) Eastman quietly and perhaps reluctantly celebrated a milestone in their lives Saturday. This vacation week marks 20 years since Buckfield, with Buck as head coach and Eastman as a junior scoring and rebounding presence, capped an unbeaten, regional championship season in Augusta.

Alison Williams won the Patricia Gallagher Award as tournament MVP during Buckfield’s breeze through the Western bracket in 1986, a run that concluded with a disappointing loss to Washburn in the state final. It was the seventh of the Bucks’ nine regional titles in a 15-year span, including state game victories in 1980 and 1990.

Buckfield lost to Richmond in the Western D final in 1987, but Eastman capped her career with a three-game tournament scoring record of 68 points that still stands. Eastman’s daughter, Emily, was a freshman guard on this year’s Buckfield squad, while husband Troy was head coach.

Unrest in the nest

Two school administrators with former coaching ties to area schools were among the faculty fielding questions about a basketball-related incident at Messalonskee High School in Oakland last week.

Twenty students were suspended from winter carnival activities at Messalonskee after a confrontation over lunchtime seating arrangements in the school gymnasium. In published reports, some students were quoted as saying they believed the incident spilled over from tensions at a basketball game, where members of the Messalonskee student section were chastised for cheers that school officials considered inappropriate.

Athletic director Brett Hoogterp, formerly the boys’ basketball coach at Leavitt, is concerned that media coverage has brought inaccurate perceptions and the wrong kind of attention to his sports program.

“The suspensions had nothing to do with sports,” Hoogterp said. “We’ve only had one issue (connected with basketball) all year long. I think that’s pretty good.”

Also embroiled in the situation was Messalonskee principal Linda Laughlin, a championship softball coach at Oak Hill in the 1990s.

Although a few students were seen at Messalonskee’s tournament preliminary games with tape over their mouths as a form of protest, cooler heads seem to have prevailed. A large delegation of fans from every age bracket attended the Eagles’ two quarterfinal games in Augusta.

With a come-from-behind win over Cony, 62-58, the Messalonskee boys advanced to a semifinal pairing Wednesday night against top-seeded Brunswick.

Staff writers Randy Whitehouse, Kalle Oakes and Kevin Mills contributed to this report.