Varsity Maine Girls Game of the Year: Cheverus basketball’s comeback for the ages
Cheverus players share the Gold Ball with their student section after the Stags overcame a 19-point third-quarter deficit to beat Hampden Academy in the Class A girls basketball state final on Feb. 28 in Portland. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)
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Being the daughter of a coach, Anna Goodman has had to watch plenty of game film.
There’s one, however, that has been particularly fun for her and her father, Bill, to put on. Every time they watch the Cheverus girls basketball team’s Class A final victory over Hampden Academy, they experience the same feelings of pride and disbelief.
“We’ve definitely watched the game back a couple of times, and talked about little moments and everything,” said Anna, a starting senior on the team. “We always joke, like, ‘Oh, we ended up winning this time again. That’s good.’
“Watching it back, we’re pretty proud of ourselves.”
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Few, if any, of the fans at Cross Insurance Arena that day believed the story could have a good ending for Cheverus after the Stags fell far behind the Broncos, the deficit reaching 19 points nearly halfway through the third quarter.
But stars for Cheverus stepped up, its defense tightened, and by night’s end, the script had been flipped, with the Stags celebrating a 63-61 overtime win that many are still trying to comprehend months later.
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“(People ask) ‘What were the emotions at halftime?’ ‘How’d you come back from that?’ ‘How’d you overcome those feelings?'” said senior Kylie Lamson, who scored 21 points in the victory. “It’s definitely still in the back of my mind. That was crazy. That was pretty much a dream come true.”
The Broncos looked dominant as they jumped on the Stags in the first half, with an answer for nearly everything Cheverus had done well all season. The Stags’ defense was shredded, as Hampden went 6 of 8 from 3-point range in the first half. Cheverus couldn’t find shooting space, and drives to the basket were turned away by 6-foot-4 center Grace LaBree, who finished with eight blocks.
The Broncos led 34-17 at halftime. Cheverus looked lost. Lillie Singleton, an assistant coach and former player for the Stags, implored the team not to give up. Bill Goodman then tried to put the deficit in perspective.
“All I said was, ‘If they play this good in the second half, we don’t have a chance,'” he said. “Kind of like joking, like, ‘Girls, they played great and we didn’t make much.’ So we really had nothing to lose. If they shot that well again, no one’s going to beat them.”
The lead peaked at 40-21 with five minutes left in the third, but Cheverus gradually began to establish a rhythm. Kristin King, a freshman who led the team with 24 points, scored eight in the third quarter, and Lamson had nine.
The Stags’ pressure defense began to fluster the Broncos, and by the end of the third, the deficit was down to nine. When Lamson made a floater with 1:38 to play, the lead was four.
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It was a brand-new game.
“When Kylie hit her shot in the paint,” Bill Goodman said, “I said, ‘You know, there’s some hope.'”
With 5.4 seconds left, Cheverus had the ball trailing 54-52. Anna Goodman and Lamson teamed up for the play that forced overtime. On an inbounds play, Goodman looked right to draw the Hampden defense away from Lamson, who cut to an open spot under the basket and made a short shot off the glass right before the buzzer.
“We’d been working on that play for so long,” Lamson said. “It was more of a ‘hoping this works one time’ type of thing.”
It was the moment, Anna Goodman realized the game was in Cheverus’ control.
“ I was just kind of feeling momentum,” she said, “so when I looked up at the scoreboard after she made that layup and I saw that it was tied, I was like, ‘Oh, wait, we could actually win this.'”
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In overtime, King hit a runner to break a 58-58 tie with 36 seconds left, and then added a pair of free throws with 17.2 seconds to go. A Hampden 3-pointer kept the Broncos in it, but Rachel LaSalle made a free throw with 1.5 seconds left and Cheverus held on.
The performances of King and Lamson were most prominent on the stat sheet, but Bill Goodman said his rewatches have only further highlighted the contributions made by role players — baskets from Marian Pitney and LaSalle, and Anna Goodman, Abby Kelly and Addie Jordan leading the pressure defense.
“The girls were incredible,” he said.
Like a good movie, the game never gets old.
“I’ve watched the game 20 times,” he said, “and every time, I’m not sure we’re going to win that one.”
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Tagged: cheverus stags, vm awards 2026
Drew Bonifant covers sports for the Press Herald, with beats in high school football, basketball and baseball. He was previously part of the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel sports team. A New Hampshire. More by Drew Bonifant
