By Larry Mahoney, BDN Staff
The top-seeded and defending state Class B champion Ellsworth High School girls basketball team used a 17-5 run at the end of the first half to break the game open on the way to a 64-44 victory over fourth seed Caribou in their B North semifinal at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor on Wednesday afternoon.
Ellsworth, now 20-0, will take on second seed Old Town, 18-2, in Friday’s 6 p.m. B North title game. It is a rematch of last year’s final won by Ellsworth.
Caribou wound up 13-6.
The Eagles were leading 25-17 with five minutes left in the half when junior forward Grace Jaffray hit a 3-pointer to trigger a run of 10 unanswered points. Lizzie Boles passed to Elise Sargent for another three and then fed Lily Bean for a top-of-the-key jumper before Jaffray finished off the flurry with a basket off her offensive rebound.
Big East Player of the Year junior guard Madelynn Deprey tried to rally her Vikings with a three and a jumper but Sargent hit another three off an Abby Radel pass, Addison Atherton had a steal and a layup and, following an offensive foul call on Caribou, Bean scored off a putback at the buzzer to make it 44-22 at the half.
“That gave us some extreme momentum,” said Ellsworth coach Andy Pooler.
Caribou girls coach Kayla Brown said Ellsworth is “definitely a really talented team.
“(Runs) were what we were worried about and they went on a run and we weren’t able to stop it,” said Brown. “The most disappointing part for all of us is we think we could have played better. It wasn’t our best game but hats off to Ellsworth. They came out ready to play, they were firing hard at us and they’re a good team.
“They deserved to win,” added Brown.
The scrappy Vikings tried to get back into the game in the second half but couldn’t get any closer than 17.
“We played very well as a team,” said Jaffray, who had 14 points, 11 rebounds and two steals for the Eagles. “We executed very well.”
“We played on-ball defense really well,” said Ellsworth junior guard Abby Radel, who had a team-high 17 points and also grabbed six rebounds. “We attacked the ballhandlers. We got steals.”
Junior forward Atherton had nine points and junior forward Bean and junior guard Sargent each had eight points. Bean also had eight rebounds and five steals.
Boles finished with six points and four assists.
Senior Meg Jordan came off the bench and did an impressive job guarding Deprey, the Big East scoring leader (22.9 ppg).
The talented Deprey had a game-high 20 points but had to work hard for all of her points.
She also corralled 11 rebounds.
Madelyn Morrow, Caribou’s only senior starter, had six points and two rebounds and sophomore forward Liv Adams had a game-high 15 rebounds to go with five points. Junior guard Ainsley Caron scored five points and had two rebounds and junior guard Brianna Levesque pulled down seven rebounds to go with her four points.
