AUGUSTA — Confronted by one of the top individual talents in the Western Class C boys’ basketball tournament, Dirigo took the NFL approach in practice.
Slap a red, yellow or green jersey on a scout team player and have him pretend to be Michael Vick or Peyton Manning.
In this case, Dirigo senior Arik Fenstermacher played the role of Waynflete’s Joe Veroneau, who almost singlehandedly chased Wiscasset out of Augusta Civic Center. Although Fenstermacher’s preferred games are baseball and football, probably in that order, the hoop assignment wasn’t far-fetched as it might sound.
“He’s a lefty,” Dirigo coach Rebecca Fletcher said. “We told him to be overly aggressive against Cody (St. Germain) in practice. We wanted him to see what it would be like.”
Aggression got the better of Veroneau on Thursday night. And what the officials’ whistles couldn’t accomplish, St. Germain and Dirigo did, holding the explosive senior to six points in a 55-37 semifinal victory.
No. 1 Dirigo (18-2) will face No. 2 Boothbay (17-3) in the regional final at 8:45 p.m. Saturday.
Those two teams went beyond the scheduled distance twice during the Mountain Valley Conference season. Dirigo won 68-62 in overtime at Boothbay Harbor before Christmas. Boothbay returned the favor, 89-88, in double OT on this civic center court in the MVC championship.
Waynflete (12-6) threatened to stick its Western Maine Conference nose into the party for a while.
The Flyers led most of the first half before a late flurry, fueled by sophomore sixth-man Travis Frost, sent the Cougars into the locker room with momentum and a 19-17 edge.
“It was like pulling teeth,” Fletcher said.
“We couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” echoed junior guard Josh Turbide.
Dirigo’s defense created unrelenting, high-percentage offense in the second half. The Cougars shot 12-for-18 (67 percent) from the field after the break while committing only five turnovers, most of those after the game was out of hand.
St. Germain scored seven of his 12 points in the second half and also tore down eight of his team-high nine rebounds in that stretch.
Turbide, who nailed a 3-pointer early in the second quarter to help Dirigo rally from an early 13-6 deficit, also had 12 points to go with five assists.
Shut out in the first half, Ben Holmes turned in 10 points. Caleb Turner added eight points and four steals.
“I was a little slow in the first half,” Holmes said. “It was a do-or-die situation.”
Frost, a 5-foot-7 reserve who probably didn’t occupy much ink on the Waynflete scouting report, sank a 3-pointer to give Dirigo its first lead, 16-15, with 2:15 remaining in the first half.
After one St. Germain free throw and a bucket by Waynflete’s Chris Burke left the game tied, Frost struck again with a steal and layup.
His steal earlier in the period led directly to a Turner basket.
“Coach tells us that a good defense makes easy offense,” Frost said. “As a group of five, when we D’d up together, we had an offensive flow.”
Turner’s two steals triggered a 12-4 run to start the third quarter.
“We made a gap that took it from like two to 10 (points), and then we never looked back,” Frost said.
Max Belleau led Waynflete with eight points, all in the second half.
Dirigo’s second-quarter run came mostly after Veroneau retreated to the bench with his third foul.
Veroneau was forced to play tentatively in the post in the third period, leaving Waynflete powerless to stop the onslaught. Two St. Germain putbacks provided additional evidence of that.
Burke also finished with six points for the Flyers.
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