By Larry Mahoney, BDN Staff
Senior point guard Noah Hurd celebrated his 18th birthday by pumping in a game-high 25 points and his seventh-seeded Mount View High School Mustangs from Thorndike put on a clinic in transition offense en route to a 78-44 victory over second seed Fort Kent in their Class C North quarterfinal at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor on Monday night.
Mount View, which was in Class B last year, is now 14-6 and will take on 13-6 Fort Fairfield, the third seed, in Thursday’s 2 p.m. semifinal in Bangor
Fort Kent concluded a 12-7 campaign.
The speedy and tenacious backcourt tandem of Hurd and senior Wyatt Evensen (17 points) forced a ton of turnovers and used their quickness to race up the court and convert those turnovers into layups.
“It started with our defense,” said the 5-foot-6 Hurd, who will attend Bangor’s Husson University in the fall and play baseball for the Eagles. “We knew if we came out and pressured them, our offense would be clicking (off the defense).”
“That’s our game and it was nice to see it show up in Bangor when we needed it the most,” said Brandon Hurd, Noah’s father and the Mount View coach. “We’re fast and we like to run up and down the court. It showed tonight.
“We played some of our best basketball of the season,” the coach added.
Fort Kent led 10-5 midway through the first period before the Mustangs got their transition game into full gear and outscored the Warriors 32-14 the rest of the half to take a 37-24 lead into the intermission.
Hurd, a career 1,000-point scorer, had 14 of his points in the first half and Evensen had 11.
The Mustangs put the game away by outscoring Fort Kent 25-8 in the third period.
Hurd had five assists, five steals and four rebounds to go with his 25 points. Evensen had 10 rebounds and six steals to accompany his 17 points.
Mount View had six players with at least eight points.
Senior forward Ben Osborne had nine points, four steals and three rebounds and sophomore forward Wyatt Bennett, junior forward Miles Carter and sophomore guard Stuart Knowlton had eight points each.
Carter had nine rebounds and Knowlton and Bennett had four each.
Fort Kent was led by senior guard and 1,000-point scorer Ethan Daigle. He registered 17 points and corralled six rebounds. Senior guard Caleb Lavertu was also in double figures with 10 points to go with three rebounds. Sophomore guard Tobias Naranja scored nine points and senior center Drew Deschaine produced four points and two rebounds.
