AUGUSTA- Sophomore guard Taylor Schildroth picked up just where he left off in the regional Class C tournament last week in Bangor. Schildroth scored 28 points and led the George Stevens Academy Eagles to their first state championship since 2003 by defeating the Waynflete Flyers 59-46 Saturday night at the Augusta Civic Center.
Schildroth started early with seven points in the opening quarter as the Eagles marched out to a 14-7 advantage after one.
GSA increased the lead to 23-12 in the second quarter, but the Flyers used a 10-2 run to close out the half to make it 25-22 heading into the intermission. Schildroth was huge again in quarter number two with nine more points for a total of 16 in the opening 16 minutes.
Waynflete senior guard Milo Belleau started to come alive for the Flyers in the third quarter as the George Stevens lead shrunk to one point several times. Another six from Schildroth and five big points from junior guard Beckett Slayton, including an off balance three pointer during a wild scramble late in the quarter kept the Eagles ahead 40-35 headed to the final eight minutes of play.
Schildroth finished off a terrific tournament by adding six more in the fourth quarter along with six from junior forward Jarrod Chase that would help spark a 9-2 run to begin the fourth to give the Eagles a 12 point advantage at 49-37. The lead would grow to as many as 14 and GSA converted on 11 for 11 at the foul line during the final quarter to help seal the victory.
Coach Dwayne Carter spoke about Schildroth and his team after the victory, “What more can you say? He (Schildroth) is just amazing. He can break down a defense and find an open man and thats what he did. He dished it off alot because we flattened it out because we knew nobody could stop him and he pulled up quite a bit and made his shots. It was just a great team effort, I am so proud of them. We faced alot of adversity during the year, injuries, we had one starter who couldn’t even play and we talked about doing it for him and we did and it was great”.
Schildroth added, “Yeah the runs they made (Waynflete) was on us, we were settling for shots. I did it too, I took a couple shots that weren’t good shots and honestly they made three or four runs, one in the second half but it was us. Coach said alright calm down then we started to feed it inside and get good shots after that”.
Waynflete finishes their season 19-3. The Flyers were led by Belleau who finished with 13 points while Will Nelligan added 11. Yai Deng added eight points while Christian Brooks also had eight and also added 10 rebounds.
George Stevens finishes up at 21-1. The Eagles lone loss came to the Class B State runner up Ellsworth during the regular season. Along with Schildroth, the Eagles also got 10 points a piece from Slayton and Chase. Max Mattson chipped in 6 points and also a game high 11 rebounds.
Members of the George Stevens Academy boys basketball team celebrate with the gold ball after their 59-46 victory over Waynflete Saturday night in the Class C State championship game at the Augusta Civic Center. Photo by Chris Lessner.
