By all accounts, Monday night's Class S quarterfinal matchup between Portland and visiting Thomaston should have been much more competitive than the 55-34 shellacking the Highlanders put on the Golden Bears.
Both teams came into the game with four losses, each team had veterans that played deep into last year's state tournament, but only one team showed up tonight with a win and move on attitude.
Portland, having coming off a near perfect performance against Kaynor Tech Thursday, put together another spectacular display of team basketball. They didn't have to rely on any one player to get things going. They remained patient, shared the ball and created high percentage shots for each other by playing unselfishly as they have all season.
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To exemplify this point, in a span of 1:02, four Lady Highlanders scored to race out to a 8-0 lead before Thomaston coach Bob McMahon called time out.
Sarah Bierly (14 points) got Portland on the board with a drive to the hoop, then Kelly Coleman (15 points) put back an offensive rebound, Bierly worked a give-and-go with Lindsey Dionne (12 points), and to cap it off, Alyssa Unikewicz (nine points) picked off a pass and went end to end for a layup.
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Portland (21-4) was all over Thomaston defensively and put an end to any sort of interior passing schemes early while building a commanding 16-5 lead by the end of the first quarter.
"Confidence! It's a great confidence factor playing at home," Portland coach Nick Chaconis said. "We got out to an 8-0 lead and I think that stayed with us the whole night.
"We were able to work around some foul trouble and got excellent minutes out of Katie Coleman tonight and went three deep in using McKenzie Reimondo and Madison Heil."
Thomaston, as they have for much of this season, relied on their three-point shooting to chip away at the lead but that plan back fired. Shot after shot was off its mark while Portland's backcourt tandem of Meaghan Rodgers and Unikewicz were in the face of Thomaston's long-range weapons.
"Rodgers and Unikewicz shut their best player down tonight," Chaconis said. "It took away a big part of their offense."
As Portland continued to outplay the Golden Bears in every aspect of the game, they added to their lead to move in front 32-17 at halftime.
Portland was well-prepared for this game and continued its dominant physical play as the second half began. Eleven seconds into the quarter Dionne scored off a pass from Bierly, Bierly and Rodgers hit off a pair of Unikewicz assists and two minutes into the quarter they were up, 39-18.
Thomaston's Kellie Burns (nine points) and Hannah Martin (13 points) kept the Golden Bears around by hitting two three-pointers toward the end of the quarter that pulled them to within 41-25 entering the fourth.
But there was not going to be any miracle comeback tonight for Thomaston (19-5). They were up against a group of basketball players that know that has a goal of being one game better than last year's runner-up finish in the Class S tournament.
"Dionne and Coleman, the two seniors are on a mission and they know from experience to take it one game at a time," Chaconis said. "Bierly seems to be healthy, which is good for us and bad for the other team because she is playing some really good basketball right now and seems to have everything snowballing and coming together."
Portland came out in the fourth and built upon its lead in the same manner that they had been using all night to dismantle the Golden Bears.
Coleman for two on a slick baseline drive, Dionne steals and dishes to Unikewicz for two, Coleman for a couple more baskets, Dionne for two, Bierly for two and Rodgers for two, all layups.
With 3:39 left, Portland had built its biggest lead of the game, 55-31.
"I think this game was one of our better ones. The teamwork was awesome," assistant coach Diane Coleman said. "Our goal before the game was to limit them to no more than 10 points a quarter and we would be OK."
As Chaconis began pulling his starters from the game, the raucous student body chanted, "It's all over, It's all over."
The game ended the same way it began with balanced scoring, tenacious defense, controlling the defensive glass and creating opportunities by outhustling Thomaston.
"We got outclassed for 32 minutes. It's tough to swallow because we have answered the bell all year long," Thomaston coach Bob McMahon said. "I loved our team this year. It's sad to see us go out like this. We're better than this and we didn't respond well to their physical play. They played a clean physical game and when we tried to play physical it just threw us off."
Portland will play the No. 1 seed in Class S, Capital Prep, on Friday at a site and time to be determined.
