AUGUSTA – The No. 6 North Haven boys basketball team tipped off against No. 2 Hyde of Bath Wednesday morning in Western Class D semifinal action at the Augusta Civic Center with Hyde coming out on top 49-39.

For North Haven making it to the tournament, let alone to the semifinals is real hard to imagine when you look at the numbers. Hyde school has 12 players on the team with an enrollment of 150 students while North Haven has 10 students on the basketball team with an enrollment of 17 total students. However this group of boys, soon to be men, are something special. They live differently than most of us, on a small island, over an hour away from the mainland. This is a group of boys that showed everyone that they play till the end, regardless of score. The game is 32 minutes and they play for 32 minutes. They also show great respect for the game, sportsmanship from this team was excellent, as was Hyde.

There were two lead changes and two ties in the game. Hyde led 16-12 after the first quarter and 28-18 at the half. By the end of the third quarter Hyde held a 36-24 lead. However North Haven came out with a 6-0 run to cut the gap in half to start the fourth and stayed in the game until the end. The 10 point difference was the result of Hyde going to the line 13 times in the fourth quarter and being successful on seven of them, while North Haven never went to the foul line in the game, to give the Phoenix the win.

Scoring for Hyde were, Warsame Mohamed with 23 points; Akim Sanni 11; Wilson MacMillan six; Aaron Leffert four; Talin Rowe three; and Kiefer Cundy two. The Phoenix were 12-of-25 (48 percent) from the foul line. They had one three-pointer from MacMillan.

For North Haven, Avery Waterman had a team high 18 points; Ethan Mao six; Zeb Campbell and Dalton Hornby four each. Aiden Emerson three; and Chayse MacDonald and Kaleb Campbell two each. The Hawks did not go to the foul line in the game. They had one 3-pointer from Emerson.

The Hawks played tough defense the entire game, with very little depth on the bench meant losing a couple of players to fouling out put the Hawks in a tough place. They however have nothing to hide their heads about. They played like it mattered, gave it all they had and on this day got beat by a better team. Great season and outstanding performance in both games at the Augusta Civic Center for the Hawks. Watching this team play it was no wonder the amount of support that showed up to cheer on this little island town of North Haven.

Click here for a photo gallery from this game.

Ron Hawkes can be reached at sports@penbaypilot.com