By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

AUGUSTA – The Purple Reign in Eastern Maine now extends just up the road from the House of Blaine.

One year after winning its first regional title in Bangor, defending state champion Hampden Academy jumped out to an early lead and cruised to a 62-49 win over top-seeded Brunswick Friday night in the first Eastern Class A championship game at the Augusta Civic Center.

Senior 6-foot-10 center Jordan Cook tallied 26 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks for Hampden (18-3), while J Uhrin added 14 points. Jordan Kelly led Brunswick (18-3) with 28 points, including a tournament record eight 3-pointers.

“(Winning Eastern A again) is pretty much the same thing, except we’ve done it before,” Cook said. “We knew what to expect. The crowds didn’t overwhelm us and we were real ready.”

“I give Hampden all the credit. They were the better team tonight,” Brunswick coach Todd Hanson. “Whatever we tried to do defensively to stop them, it seemed like they had a counter.”

The second-seeded Broncos had their way offensively and ended up shooting 50 percent from the field. With the exception of Kelly’s marksmanship, they had their way defensively, too, as the Dragons shot just 24 percent from the field.

“We had some good looks early, but unfortunately we weren’t able to convert on them,” Hanson said. “I’m glad Jordan made the bus ride tonight, or we really would have been in trouble.”

Kelly single-handedly kept the Dragons from getting blown out early. The senior forward connected on three 3-pointers and scored all 11 of Brunswick’s points in the first quarter. The Broncos, meanwhile, went inside to Cook for 10 points and shot 8-for-12 from the field to open an 18-11 lead.

“They try to force tempo on us. We obviously want to slow it down,” said Hampden coach Russ Bartlett. “They did a good job of making us go a little fast in the second half, and we did kind of hang on at the end, but in the first half we got ourselves enough of a cushion that it didn’t hurt us.”

Sam Hodgdon came off the bench to start the second quarter and hit a trey that gave Hampden a 10-point lead. Travis O’Dell’s dunk and some full-court pressure got the Dragons breathing fire again as they cut the deficit in half with just under three minutes left.

But the Broncos topped off the half with six unanswered points to take an 11-point lead into the locker room. Max Silver (10 points, 14 rebounds) and Cook pulled down three straight offensive rebounds on one trip that ended with a Cook putback. Uhrin electrified the Bronco faithful with a steal and jam of his own, and then Cook barely beat the buzzer on a disputed basket.

Hampden scored on its first four possessions of the second half on a hoop by Cook, back-to-back jumpers by Uhrin and a lay-up by Cook to widen the lead to 19 less than two minutes in.

Kelly repeated his first quarter performance with 11 points and three 3-pointers to help the Dragons pull back within 14 heading into the fourth quarter. He drilled a long trey to tie the tournament record early in the fourth quarter, then broke it with 2:07 left to cut the lead to 11, but that was as close as the Dragons would get.