BANGOR, Maine — Senior guard Claire Gaetani had never played a Class B North Tournament game at the Cross Insurance Center because her John Bapst High School teams had never made it to the quarterfinals.
The Crusaders, who play their home regular season games at the Cross Center, needed to win a preliminary round game against Washington Academy of East Machias on Tuesday night to earn that right. And Gaetani made sure they did.
The talented Gaetani, a career 1,000-point scorer, poured in a game-high 30 points, grabbed 12 rebounds, made eight steals and handed out five assists to lead the Crusaders to a 56-38 victory over the Raiders.
The sixth-seeded Crusaders, who improved to 11-8, will now face rival and third seed Old Town, 12-6, in Friday’s 4 p.m. quarterfinal at the Cross Insurance Center.
The teams split during the regular season.
Eleventh-seeded Washington Academy finished at 7-12.
“It’s a good feeling. I wasn’t going to let this be my last game,” said Gaetani, who will continue her basketball career at Lewiston’s Bates College in the fall.
The Crusaders jumped out to a 17-2 lead after the first period and appeared to be cruising to a comfortable victory with a 37-16 lead early in the third period.
But the gritty Raiders mounted a ferocious comeback, rattling off a 14-2 run to pull within nine late in the quarter behind senior guard Miranda Cheney’s three 3-pointers.
Gaetani then took the game over, scoring six points and picking up assists on layups by Julie Goodine and Stella Goetz as the Crusaders put the game away with a 10-3 run spanning the third and fourth quarters.
“I knew the ball needed to be in my hands. And it worked,” said Gaetani.
“We feel pretty comfortable with the ball in her hands,” said John Bapst coach Matt Smith. “We flattened out our offense and let her go to work one-on-one and then she can read from there because she is such a smart basketball player.”
Gaetani began the decisive 10-2 spurt with a layup and then grabbed a defensive rebound and fed Goodine for her basket. A Gaetani steal and pass to Goetz made it 45-30.
Senior guard-forward Abigail Maker hit a 3-pointer off a Reese Crosman pass for Washington Academy to open the fourth quarter. But two Gaetani layups, the second coming off her steal, expanded the lead to 49-33 and Washington Academy couldn’t get any closer than 14 the rest of the way.
“It wasn’t a perfect game by any stretch,” said Smith. “There’s a lot that we can improve on but we did enough of the right things and executed on enough of the things we needed to do to win the game.”
“They got out to an early lead that made it hard to come back,” said Washington Academy coach Josh Cates, whose team missed all nine of its field goal attempts in the first quarter and was limited to just two Avery Cates free throws.
“Gaetani is tough. We tried to double-team her some but that left another girl open and they were capitalizing on that, hitting open shots,” said Cates. “When we tried to play her one-on-one, she finds a way to score.”
Gaetani scored 32 points in a regular season win over Washington Academy at the Cross Center on Feb. 5. The Raiders had beaten John Bapst in East Machias, 57-47, on Jan. 11.
Sophomore guard Goetz finished with 12 points, four rebounds and three steals for the Crusaders. Junior forward Hailee Dearborn had five points, four rebounds and three steals and forward Sophia Ward, the only other senior on the roster, produced four points, three rebounds and a blocked shot.
Senior guard Cates paced the Raiders with 12 points, seven rebounds, three steals and two blocked shots. Cheney finished with 11 points and four rebounds. Maker wound up with six points and seven rebounds, and senior guard-forward Johanna Kiland had three points and four rebounds.
