AUGUSTA – Nine minutes of solid basketball isn’t usually enough to keep a team around the Augusta Civic Center for long, but Rangeley did just enough in that nine minutes to survive.

The second-seeded Lakers shot an anemic 14 percent from the field, yet still avoided being upset by No. 7 Hebron in an ugly 37-27 win in the Western Class D girls’ quarterfinals Monday.

The Lakers will face No. 6 Richmond in the semifinals at 10 a.m. on Thursday.

“We went up and down the floor, but we didn’t play with the intensity we needed to to win,” said Rangeley coach Heidi Deery. “We were fortunate that we were in a ballgame where nine minutes was going to do it. Against other teams, that’s not going to do it.”

Other teams may not turn the ball over 37 times like Hebron did Monday, but other teams also may not have the height in the frontcourt to disrupt Rangeley’s inside game like Hebron had in sisters Sara and Emily Powers. Playing a 3-2 zone, the Auburn combo shut down Rangeley center and leading scorer Angela White (three points).

“We wanted to be able to completely face anybody that came into the middle of the paint and double down on the block anytime they got the ball in the block,” said Hebron coach Heather Ferrenbach, whose team was making the first appearance at the ACC in the program’s history. “We knew that that’s what they’d try to do, and we knew that their outside shooters weren’t really that strong. We knew that with our height, we could compete with them if we shut down their middle game.”

“That team has some serious height,” Deery said. “That number 13 (Sara Powers), she’s good. We haven’t seen a lot of height. We knew we were going to have to contend with that.”

Deery also had to contend with nearly a two-week layoff from the Lakers last regular season game and some overconfidence on her squad because they trounced Hebron, 39-8 on Jan. 24. The Lumberjacks played that game without junior point guard Andrea Hart, who scored a team-high 10 points Monday despite still feeling the effects of a foot fracture suffered early in the season.

Fortunately for the Lakers (14-5), Krista Jamison picked up the offensive slack with a game-high 21 points, including all three of their field goals in the first half. They missed their first six shots and had five turnovers before Jamison made their first basket with 2:11 to go in the first quarter. She added back-to-back hoops to start the second period to give Rangeley its only lead of the first half at 12-10. Hebron (10-5) got hoops from Sara Powers and Kala Hemphill to reclaim the lead, then got a big momentum burst going into the locker room at halftime when Hart banked a 3-pointer at the buzzer to make it 21-17.

But turnovers and poor shooting began to catch up with the Lumberjacks in the second half. Thirteen turnovers limited them to just two points and helped give Rangeley 23 shot attempts to Hebron’s six in the third quarter. The Lakers continued to miss the mark at an alarming rate, however, and were only able to tie it at 23 heading into the fourth.

“We just, for some reason, lost steam in the second half,” Ferrenbach said. “We kind of came out flat and that third quarter turned the tide of the game.”

Two free throws by Jamison gave the Lakers the lead for good 33 seconds into the final period. Samantha Olivieri followed with a jumper from the top of the key and Jamison added another bucket to make it 29-23. The Lumberjacks briefly closed to within three on an Emily Powers putback, but Sara Powers fouled out a short time later and Rangeley made enough free throws down the stretch to pull away.”

“I was pleased with our composure at the end of the game, because with the type of game that we played and our inexperience, it could have caught up to us,” Deery said.