Mount View stuns top-seeded Calais to win C North boys crown
The seventh-seeded Mount View boys basketball team stormed past the No. 1 Calais Blue Devils 72-38 in the Class C North title game at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor Saturday night, earning a spot in next week’s state championship.
The upstart Mustangs became the lowest seed across all five classes and both genders to qualify for the state finals this February, with No. 4 Orono in Class B boys being the next-lowest. The Mustangs were equally as dominant as they were surprising, winning their four postseason games by a combined 108 points.
Mount View will play No. 3 Monmouth Academy from the south next Saturday at 8:45 p.m. at the Augusta Civic Center. It will be the Mustangs’ first shot at a gold ball since winning it all in 1986-87.
“It feels amazing — we played our own game,” senior Wyatt Evensen said. “The teams we played here had not seen a team like us at all, and we just did our own thing.”
The high-energy Mustangs kicked down the door early against Calais, using 10 points from senior guard Noah Hurd to take a 20-6 lead after one quarter. In the second, Calais appeared to have figured out the Mustangs’ aggressive defense, trailing 35-22 right before halftime, but a fadeaway 3-pointer from Hurd to beat the buzzer sent the Mount View faithful into hysterics and the Mustangs headed to the locker room riding high.
When play resumed, Hurd and company picked up where they left off, quickly draining three more threes and gradually ballooning their lead to 30. The Mustangs finished with 10 made threes on Saturday night, six of which came from Hurd, who tallied 30 points, three assists and two steals.
Hurd’s backcourt partner Evensen contributed 10 points (including two 3-pointers and a successful and-one play at the rim), three assists and three steals, and sophomores Stuart Knowlton and Wyatt Bennett combined for 19 additional points.
“I’ve had the privilege of watching Noah and Wyatt [Evensen] play basketball since third grade, and to [now] see them as seniors, being the leaders that they are,” Mount View head coach Brandon Hurd said. “There’s no doubt that when those two are on, good things are happening for us. Those two are our leaders, and they showed it throughout this whole tournament.”
For Calais, senior captain Jeremy Turner (seven points, five assists) and junior shooting guard Kaeson Dana (11 points, three 3-pointers, one assist) led the Blue Devils in scoring, while junior Oliver Clark and sophomore Phillip Bassett (three assists) would contribute five points each.
Mount View (5-for-9) outshot Calais (2-for-10) at the free throw line, and picked Calais’ pocket eight times, inducing 13 total turnovers. Against Fort Fairfield two days ago, Mount View stole the ball 12 times, and induced 21 total Tiger turnovers.
“We’ve always stressed that defense wins. We’ve got the group that can bring it defensively, and that was our focus point,” coach Hurd said. “We knew that we can shoot well at home and on the road, but coming here it could [have been] a different story. We were built on defense, and we knew our style could play well up here, and that’s exactly what it did.”
