In this article, you will get detail regarding Elise MacNair leads Old Orchard Beach girls past Dexter for 1st Class C state title
Old Orchard Beach senior guard Elise MacNair showed Tuesday night why she is a finalist for Miss Maine Basketball.
Bowdoin’s slick and speedy MacNair scored 21 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, had three steals and two assists to lead Old Orchard Beach to the Class C championship in its first state title appearance, a 35-24 victory over Dexter at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor.
MacNair shot 9-for-15 from the floor.
“There was a lot of nervous energy about it,” said the 5-foot-5 lefty MacNair. “I don’t necessarily think I was nervous about the opponent we were playing, it was more about what was at stake.”
McNair, who scored 88 points in three games at the Class C South tournament to earn MVP honors, added that she “came into this game confident and I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.”
MacNair said the Gulls felt they had some “obvious mismatches on the floor tonight and we tried to take advantage of them as much as possible, using our speed and athleticism.” That’s what we did. We knew Dexter was a little bigger than us.”
Junior Sarah Davis added nine points, four steals and three rebounds for 19-3 Old Orchard Beach.
“Elise knows when to take it, when to shoot, how to turn everything on.” She does everything,” Davis said.
credit: Kim Higgins / BDN
Seven points, five rebounds and two steals from junior Cally Goodroe, six points and nine rebounds from junior Hannah Dean and six points from sophomore Abby Corson made it 20-2 Dexter.
The Seagulls did a good job of collapsing on 6-foot-2 Mazie Peach in their 2-3 matchup zone, holding the Class C North tournament MVP to five points, six rebounds and three steals. Dexter had trouble getting the ball to Peaches at the low post.
“Summer st. Louis did a really amazing job on her, limiting her touches,” MacNair said. “We really focused on three-quarter help from the front and back and that limited their lobs on Peach.”
The Seagulls also held their own on the boards, as they only had two shots (21-19).
“We knew we had to box out. They thrive on second chance points. There was a lot of emphasis on that. We knew we had to get the job done,” MacNair said.
credit: Kim Higgins / BDN
“MacNair is a Miss Basketball finalist for a reason,” Dexter coach Jody Grant said. “She’s as good as anyone we’ve faced this year.”
Grant said his team was out of sync on offense.
“We held them to 35 points. I thought we had a chance. “We thought it might be possible to hold MacNair to 18-20 depending on the shooting, but we have to score more than 24 points,” Grant said.
“Sometimes people were open, but we hesitated and didn’t find them in time,” Grant added. “We’re a team that needs to function as a group, and if things go wrong, it’s stuck. Our spacing was not great at times. So it was a combination of a lot of different little things that can make running a half-court offense a challenge.”
Old Orchard Beach coach Dean Plante said his guards pressured the ball well.
“That was our primary thought. Frustrate their guards,” Plante said. “Get them out of position and make them extend their possession. Our kids take a lot of pride in what we do, defensively.”
Dexter shot just 26.5 percent from the floor (9-for-34) compared to Old Orchard Beach’s 48.3 percent (14-for-29).
MacNair scored 15 points in the first half as Old Orchard Beach led 20-14 at the break. She shot 7-10 from the floor, and had four rebounds and three steals.
The Seagulls spotted Dexter’s first three points of the game before going on an 8-2 run that gave them a lead they would never relinquish.
credit: Kim Higgins / BDN
They led 9-7 in the second period when they scored nine straight points as MacNair fed a wide-open St. Louis under the basket, then made two steals and drove down the court for a layup.
Davis stopped the rebound with a 3-pointer.
The Seagulls broke the game open in the third quarter, outscoring Dexter 10-3 to extend their lead to 30-17.
Dexter was held scoreless until Corson hit a 3-pointer with 1:11 left in the quarter.
Dexter couldn’t get any closer than 11 the rest of the way.
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Elise MacNair leads Old Orchard Beach girls past Dexter for 1st Class C state title
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