AUGUSTA — The Western Class C girls’ basketball championship game wasn’t going in Jay’s direction Saturday night.
But then came the second half.
The second-seeded Tigers whittled a double-digit gap, then used a constricting defense under the basket and timely late free-throw shooting to upset top-ranked Waynflete 40-38 and capture the regional title at the Augusta Civic Center.
Jay (18-4) will face George Stevens Academy for the Class C championship at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Bangor Auditorium.
“We came out and we didn’t have the intensity that they had,” said Hillary Deane, who scored 11 for Jay.
“We couldn’t match the other team’s intensity and that’s what we needed to get. We’ve done it. We’ve been down by 20 points in a few games this season and we’ve come back to win.”
Morgan Woodhouse scored 16 points and Mariam Qazi added 15 for the Flyers (17-4), who led 5-4 after the first quarter and 17-9 midway through the second quarter.
But Liz LeBlanc, who finished with a team-high 12 points, found her shooting touch for Jay in the final four minutes of the first half.
LeBlanc didn’t score in the first quarter, but with her team down 17-9, scored the next eight points for Jay, including a pair of 3-pointers to tie the game with 23 seconds left in the half.
But Qazi’s basket at the buzzer gave the Flyers a 19-17 halftime lead.
“We got Morgan the touches and Mariam was under great pressure to get the ball inside to Annie (Cutler) and Morgan,” Waynflete Coach Brandon Salway said of the first half, when Qazi scored 12 points to lead the Flyers.
“Things went pretty smoothly. The second half we had a tougher time. We didn’t have the touches inside. We did a good job of getting the ball in the post in the first half. The second half, we probably didn’t get as many touches inside as we liked.”
Tied 28-28 after the third period, Qazi gave the Flyers a 30-28 lead to open the fourth.
But the Flyers and Tigers traded leads twice in the first two minutes of the fourth before Woodhouse’s putback gave Waynflete a 34-31 lead.
The Tigers then went on a 6-1 run to take a 37-35 lead before calling a timeout with 2:50 left in the game.Continuing to defend well in the paint and at the perimeter, where Qazi only took one shot in the fourth, the Tigers held onto a 37-36 lead after Qazi’s free throw with 1:48 left.
Jay made 3 of 4 free throws in the final 30 seconds to take a 40-36 lead.
Woodhouse then scored with 1.8 seconds left to make it 40-38.
Woodhouse then intercepted Jay’s inbounds pass with 1.8 seconds left and attempted a shot from midcourt.Her heave fell short at the buzzer.
“I think they played real tough defense the whole game and did a real good job on Mariam,” Salway said.
“The second half, we had a tough time getting shots to Mariam. I thought we did a pretty good job defensively. Most of the game we had chances. We just didn’t connect on a couple of those shots at the end.”
Staff Writer Rachel Lenzi can be reached at 791-6415 or at:
rlenzi@pressherald.com
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