Bangor Boys upsets Lawrence 48-31 with De…fence

The only upset I picked in the quarter-final round of the Eastern Maine Boys A games was Bangor over Lawrence. Very tough to beat a good team 3 times in less then 11 days. especially when you have a very good athletic rivalry with your opponents. Thus, Lawrence after beating Bangor less then two weeks ago by holding the Rams to just 22 points in a 37-22 win.

However, Bangor was the one to swap the defrense as they limited Lawrence to just 31 points in their 48-31 victory.

Bangor was leading 32-30 when Pat Stewart scored 5 unanswered points to give the Rams a 37-30 lead and broke the game open for the Rams.

Credit the Bangor defense as they turned the tables on Lawrence when it really counted in the one and done game. Listening to the game, I could not tell what defense Bangor was playing. But by the type of shoots Lawrence was getting, I think they might have gone back to Coach Reed’s favorite trick of playing a 2-3 zone in the tournament instead of the Rams normal man to man. Whatever defense it was it really did the job as Lawrence missed shot after shot, espcially when they had cut the lead to 32-30.

Bangor lead 12-8 at the end of the lst period. Lead 24-18 at the half (2 more points then they had in the loss at Bangor). Bangor took a 32-28 lead as Lawrence cut the lead to 4.

 Lawrence scored first to start the 4th period to make ot 32-30 Bangor and that would be their last field goal of the game. Bangor went on a 17-1 run from that point, limiting the bulldogs to just 1 free throw for the remainder of the game.

Lawrence was colder then a “Referee’s heart”, as they just could not make a field goal in the last 7 minutes of the game. They kept missing 3 point attempt after 3 point attempt.

Lawrence had to foul and Bangor made their foul shots down the stretch. Neither team shot well from the foul line, until Bangor did when Lawrence had to start fouling. 

Pat Stewart lewad Bangor with 17 points and was helped out by Xavier Lewis with 11 (with clutch foul shooting down the stretch) Spencer Carey lead Lawrence with 12.

Bangor had 5 three pointers.

It will be interesting to see the final statistics for this game, Field Goal Percentages, 3 point percentages, foul shooting percentages and the number of turnovers

Bangor now plays the winner of the 9 Erskine vs. Top seeded Hampden on Wednesday