Sports

Central boys overcome Gilbert milestone to edge PCHS

By Ernie Clark, Bangor Daily News Staff

The Central of Corinth boys basketball team scored its second narrow victory of the winter over Piscataquis of Guilford in a clash of Class C North rivals Tuesday.

But the visiting Red Devils had to overcome a milestone performance by the Pirates’ Kobe Gilbert to complete the sweep with a 52-48 victory.

Gilbert, a senior guard, scored a team-high 32 points against Central’s box-and-one defense, including his 1,000th career point on a jumper from near the free-throw line with 4:14 left in the game.

But Central took the lead for good at 18-16 on a baseline jumper by junior guard Simon Allen early in the second quarter, and with Allen going on to match Gilbert’s 32-point performance coach Riley Donovan’s Red Devils never trailed again while improving their record to 5-6 with one game left in the regular season.

Central never led by more than seven points during the game’s final 22 minutes, and usually it was much closer.

The Red Devils led by just one point at both halftime (27-26) and the end of the third quarter (44-43), but Piscataquis couldn’t get the timely basket it needed to regain the lead.

Gilbert, who entered the contest averaging 33.4 points per game this winter and needing 29 to reach 1,000 for his career, became just the fifth player in school history to reach the milestone when he used a pick by classmate Chris Easler near the free-throw line and buried a 15-foot jumper to draw the Pirates within 46-45.

“I didn’t really think about it at all coming into the game,” Gilbert said. “I just wanted to win.” 

But while both teams struggled offensively throughout the final eight minutes, Allen scored off an inbounding pass and the Red Devils made 4 of 6 free throws in the final minutes to offset a late 3-pointer by Gilbert.

Piscataquis was hurt by a 4-of-29 shooting performance from beyond the 3-point arc.

“It was a weird game, it felt weird and sloppy and just didn’t go our way,” Pirates’ coach Alden Gregory said. “There was a lot of distraction, obviously, but we also had a lot of open shots. We had a lot of open threes and we have guys who can hit them and I trust those guys who were shooting the threes.

“They just didn’t go in. If a couple go in it changes the whole game.”

Allen, who beat Piscataquis with a late 3-pointer in their earlier meeting of the winter, made 13 of his 23 field-goal attempts overall, including 3 of 7 from beyond the arc, in the rematch.. 

He scored all 11 of his team’s points during the second quarter, then added eight third-quarter points to help Central maintain its slight lead.

“[Simon] can score from outside, and he’s added to his game this year the penetration and really has become a threat inside,” Donovan said. “He likes the pull-up jump shot and the turnaround jump shot at times.

“He’s really become a good all-around player and really quite an offensive threat for us.”

Senior guard Bryce Burns added nine points and a team-leading seven rebounds for Central while drawing the primary defensive assignment against Gilbert. Will Libby added seven points and teamed with Allen to help defend against Gilbert from the top of Central’s 2-2 zone.

“I thought we did about the best I could have hoped for against Kobe, honestly,” Donovan said. “Bryce worked his butt off guarding him, Will and Simon did a great job helping and the big guys got rebounds when we needed them late in the game.”

When Gilbert struggled shooting from the perimeter, the 5-foot-10 guard worked his way inside and scored 10 of his points on second-chance opportunities. He finished with a game-high 15 rebounds.

“I figured I’d just drive more if the threes weren’t hitting, and I was able to get some points off the offensive boards,” he said.

Freshman Scott Chadbourne added seven points for the Pirates, also 5-6 on the regular season with one game left.

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