Add Jonesport-Beal to the Agony of Upset Defeat and Easton’s Thrill of Victory

Again, being number 1, being undefeated and having the best player in the state on your team and earning a D1 basketball scholarship. makes you an extremely big a target as there can be in high school basketball.

Easton had a game plan. The knew they needed to slow down and control the tempo of the game in order to be successful. They executed to perfection for a 55-53 win over previously undefeated JB.

JB likes to put man to man half court pressure on to set up its fast paced offense and likes to score in transition off opponents turnovers.

Easton ran a very patient Princeton Type 1-4 high offense which made the Royals pay the price on defensive overplay with alot of easy backdoor layups. Princeton Offense at the Bangor Auditorium. Outstanding effort and game plan.

Been a long time since this type of upset 8 over 1 by slowing the tempo down and running an offense that took advantage of defensive frustration which caused some defensive mistakes.

Easton performed their coaches excellent game plan to a tee and JB was frustrated right from the start.

Easton followed Foxcroft Academies slow down tempo in their upset wins of 4 Oceanside in the prelim and 5th seeded Caribou in the B Quarter-finals.

Defintely the 2 best coaching jobs by Coach Kinsbury of Easton and Coach Carey of FA in the tournament so far in all classes in the East.

However, the bad news is that most of the time teams that pull these major upsets especially 8 over 1 do not win their semi-final, let alone win an Eastern maine or State Championship.

The only 8th seeded teams to upset a one in quarter-final action that went on to win an Eastern maine Championship was Hampden Academy.

In fact. I believe they did it twice, once under Coach Russ Bartlett and once under Coach Norm Prouty.

FA and Easton will not have the element of surprise in their semi-final matchups against Medomak Valley and Hodgfon.

Some basketball experts that I know have felt that Medomak and Hodgdon have the most talent in each of their respective classes.

Easton did what they had to do in order to win and with the pressure all on JB, it worked to perfection, despite a great night offensively by Garet Beal who scored 38 points.

Turner for Easton was outstanding for the Bears with 22 points and many rebounds.