The Dirigo boys’ basketball team saw a lot of spectacles and took a lot of thrill rides during their recent holiday-break trip to Orlando, but they didn’t see anything else quite like the team from Marina High School in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The Cougars traveled to Orlando in the final days of 2007 for a national high school tournament and won their first two countable games before losing in the final. On the first day of the eight-team event, they beat Tuscaloosa, Ala., 61-39, then agreed to play an exhibition against Marina. Dirigo lost the game, 90-71, against what will probably be the most unusual opponent they ever face.

Marina attempted 66 3-pointers, and converted 16 of them, in the game. Most high school teams don’t take 66 shots in an entire game.

“Their coach told me they want to shoot 75 every game,” Dirigo coach Gavin Kane said.

Dirigo is known for trying to force an up-tempo pace, but they ride the brakes compared to Marina.

“They have 15 kids, three groups of five, and they would substitute on every third whistle, regardless of whether that group had been in 30 seconds or two minutes,” Kane said. “They just constantly double-team you and press you, and they definitely were looking for the ‘3’ at all times. They were passing up layups to shoot 3-pointers.”

Kane wanted to see how his team could adjust to playing against such an unorthodox style, and he was pleased with the results. The Cougars had to adjust to a wide range of styles and abilities in the three countable games they played. They beat a tough Friends Seminary squad from New York, 66-54, before falling to another California team, Salesian, 60-51 in the final.

“The first game (against Tuscaloosa) was like playing a second-tier team in our (Mountain Valley) conference,” Kane said. “Seminary was comparable to the elite teams in our conference, and the two California teams we played were probably as good as, if not better than, any team in our state, regardless of class.”

Junior Thomas Knight led the Cougars in averaging a little more than 16 points per game in the tournament. Colby Knapp averaged just under 12 ppg and Erik Kersey played a couple of solid games.

The players and their families had to raise $1,100 per player to make the trip possible. A number of family members paid their own way to head south with the team. Including players, coaches and relatives, the traveling party consisted of 47 people.

“I really wondered how it was going to work out with that many people, but I can’t tell you enough how positive an experience it was for everybody,” Kane said. “The tournament was very well organized, and the package we all had was great. I definitely feel like we came back a better basketball team, and that was something I was looking for.”

The trip wasn’t all about basketball. The tournament held a banquet for the teams and arranged for Sea World to open its gates one night exclusively to all of the players and their families. The Dirigo contingent also visited the Disney parks.

Kane said the Cougars were a little weary and rusty when they returned home and played their first game against Telstar last Thursday, but they won that game and beat Georges Valley on Saturday to remain undefeated here in Maine. They face rival Mountain Valley in Rumford on Tuesday night.