Adrian Ledesma clutched the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship trophy in one hand and the SAC South Division title hardware in the other Thursday night. The Lawrence senior point guard didn’t seem interested in parting with them anytime soon. After all, he spent the previous hour-and-a-half sharing the basketball with his teammates. Ledesma, who has scored more than 1,300 career points in his four-year varsity career, had only two in the host Tigers’ 71-54 victory over Bangor in the SAC boys’ basketball title game before an energetic, packed-house crowd. But the 6-foot all-state candidate played the set-up role to a T, finishing with 13 assists, three steals and three blocks. “This is the best I’ve felt after scoring (only) two points,” Ledesma said with a chuckle, while Tigers players and fans merrily celebrated their school’s first overall conference title since the 1999-2000 season. “It took me four years to get the overall (trophy), and I’ve finally done it,” Ledesma said.
On Dec. 13, Lawrence squeaked past Bangor, 71-70, on its home floor. In the rematch Thursday, the Tigers (18-1), ranked No. 5 in Class D, pounced on Bangor (18-2), rated fourth in Class C, with a quick-strike 19-0 run that covered the final 3:50 of the opening half. Lawrence led 41-25 at halftime. The Vikings pulled within nine, 51-43, with 2:22 left in the third quarter, but that was as close as they got.
Both teams like to turn defensive stops into transition opportunities. Lawrence got the better of Bangor in that department in this game, scoring 54 of its points in or near the paint on fast breaks and dump-off passes from Ledesma. “Last time we played (Bangor), we pretty much ran a set-up type of offense,” said 13th-year Lawrence coach Mike Salvano, who recorded his 200th win last week at Hartford. “This time, I said, ‘We’re going to pressure the ball a little bit and try to get out and run on them a little bit,’ because they didn’t go real deep into their bench.”
A driving force in the Tigers’ transition game was junior wing Lee Cammire, who scored a team-high 21 points to go along with five rebounds. “We have a lot of guys that love to play,” Cammire said. “I just try to help out any way I can.”
Shayne Whittington, a still-growing 6-9 junior center, dominated inside for Lawrence with 16 points, 16 rebounds and five blocks. His brother, senior forward Spencer Whittington (6-3, 240 pounds), powered his way to 16 points and eight rebounds.
Senior guard Hayden McAndrew came off the bench to ignite the Tigers’ big run before the half, scoring all 10 of his points in less than three minutes. “I love our bench,” Shayne Whittington said. “The momentum changed and we just took it.”
Bangor guard Shiron Williams, a 6-1 junior, scored the majority of his game-high 22 points on slashes through the lane and putbacks. Williams also had eight rebounds for the North Division-champion Vikings, who launched an eye-popping 76 shot attempts (making 23 of them, for a 30.3 percent success rate). Junior Jace Quinn added 11 points, and senior Jacorrian Howell had 10 for Bangor. The Vikings’ Scott Hill, a 6-5 junior, grabbed nine rebounds.
During a physical game in which only 15 total fouls were called, the Tigers managed to make 32 of their 62 shot attempts (51.6 percent). “They just really took over the game (in the second-quarter run), I thought, and they did it with something we talk about every day — good defense,” Bangor coach Rocky Johnson said. “They stifled us. We didn’t get the shots we normally get. Our shots were contested, and we just basically got beat at our own game.”