By Larry Mahoney, BDN Staff
The undefeated Schenck High School Wolverines built a 16-point halftime lead and withstood a Katahdin of Stacyville second-half rally to post a 50-42 Class D North victory and advance to Saturday’s 2:45 p.m. North final against second seed Bangor Christian.
Top-seeded Schenck of East Millinocket is now 20-0 while No. 4 Katahdin wound up 17-3.
Schenck won both regular season meetings with the 17-3 Patriots.
Senior guard Mason McDunnah poured in a game-high 16 points and he also had five rebounds, three steals and three assists for the Wolverines. Senior center Brady McAvoy had 10 points and eight rebounds and junior forward Owen Wyman had nine points and 10 rebounds.
Junior forward Samuel Jacobs produced six points and three steals off the bench.
Junior Connor Edwards had 10 points to lead the Cougars. He also grabbed seven rebounds. Senior Josiah Rodgerson had three 3-pointers for nine points. Sophomore guard Calvin Richardson also had nine points and junior Josh Martin had eight. Martin had eight rebounds and Richardson had three steals and three rebounds.
Schenck scored the game’s first eight points and Katahdin never got closer than six.
McDunnah scored the first six points and McAvoy for a drive to the basket.
The Wolverines scored the final eight points of the first half to build the lead to 26-10.
Jacobs made a steal and passed to Wyman who gave it back to him for a layup. McDunnah popped in a basket, Jacobs had a steal and layup and Kayden Osborne hit a jumper from the corner as the buzzer went off.
The Wolverines led by 16 after three before the Cougars rallied in the fourth quarter, forcing a number of turnovers and Rodgerson’s 3-pointer finished off a 7-0 run to make it 40-31.
But a McDunnah free throw and pass to McAvoy underneath made it 43-31 with 4:53 left and Katahdin couldn’t get any closer than nine the rest of the way.
“Our defense won it for us,” said McDunnah. “When they pressed us they made us rush our offense and we just had to slow it down, keep it together and finish out the game.”
“We knew they weren’t going away, a good team like that,” said Schenck coach Aaron Hutchins, whose teams have been ousted in the semifinals the previous three seasons. “Our energy and our defensive effort got us the lead. We had great effort in the first half in our intensity defensively. We got out in passing lanes and continued their top scorers (Edwards and Richardson). We tried to make life extremely tough for them. They are good shooters so we wanted to rush everything,” Hutchins added.
He said Katahdin made adjustments in the second half and were able to “rip and run and get more player movement. Hats off to them. They didn’t quit.”
Hutchins pointed out that his team “hasn’t been put in that situation a lot this year and if we can win and learn, it’s a great day, especially a win in the semifinals which is something we hadn’t done the last three years.”
