AUGUSTA — With two impressive wins to end the regular season, the Dirigo girls’ basketball team hoped it had all the momentum it needed heading into the postseason. Tuesday night, the Cougars proved they were still on a roll.

Dirigo toppled the defending Class C state champs from Jay with an impressive 42-23 victory in its Western C quarterfinal. The Cougars opened a five-point lead in the first quarter and held the Tigers at bay the rest of the night.

“It’s exciting,” said junior guard Hannah Knight, who led the Cougars with 17 points. “I don’t think I’ve been this excited after a game before.”

Dirigo played well last year in the quarterfinals but lost to Mt. Abram. After another year of seasoning and wins over Jay and Mountain Valley to end the season, the Cougars were confident entering the tourney. It showed with a great defensive effort and a well-balanced and executed offense.

“We’re definitely building off the last two games against Mountain Valley and Jay,” said Knight, whose team has won eight of its last 10.

Senior Jane Hebert added 13 while Morgan Hutchins added six for the Cougars. Jay got nine from Hillary Deane and eight from Alexis Blodgett.

It was a disappointing finish for the Tigers, which returned one of the
better teams in the MVC after winning the state crown and only losing a
couple players. Jay lost three of its last five games.

“When you come to Augusta to win, you have to have great team chemistry and great senior leadership,” said Jay coach Chris Bessey. “That’s what Dirigo has. I think they’re going to make a good run because they have that.”

While Dirigo shot 9-for-24 in the first half, the Tigers shot just 5-for-27 and started the third quarter missing its first five shots, finishing 2-for-10. The Cougars hit five-of-eight in the third to break the game open.

“We were getting shots, but they weren’t going in,” said Bessey. “If you don’t put the ball in the basket, you’re not going to win many basketball games.”

Jay had the lead midway through the first after a Deane three-point play but back-to-back scores by Hebert and a backdoor score by Knight had Dirigo up 10-5.

“We were hoping that if we could get easy one’s and get a little bit of a lead and continue to play good defense, we’d be alright,” said Dirigo coach Reggie Weston.

Five points by Knight to start the second had the lead up to 15-5, but a Jay rally cut the lead to 15-14 late in the half. Mallory Bonnevie had a drive and hit a 3-pointer while Blodgett added a jumper to pace the comeback. A Deane free throw with 3:16 made it a one-point game.

“We were down 10,” said Bessey. “We went to our half-court trap. That confused them a little bit. We started making a couple shots. They called a timeout and after that timeout, we weren’t able to get the momentum back.”

Dirigo finished the half with a jumper by Alyssa Wade and a basket by Knight.

“We stressed composure,” said Weston. “It was early in the game, and we had to have composure and we couldn’t give in.”

In the third, Dirigo ran off nine straight to start and had an 11-2 run. Jay went nearly 10 whole minutes without a field goal and were behind 30-16 with 1:16 left in the third. Knight had six points during that run while Hebert and Hutchins also chipped in.

“I was really nervous for this game,” said Knight. “I knew they weren’t going to let me shoot outside too much this game.”