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Those Championship Seasons Never Far From City Memories
By Hugh Bowden
It has been nearly
50 years since the city of Ellsworth celebrated its golden age of
basketball.
Jubilant Ellsworth players in 1953 celebrate their 83-57 win
over Old Town. At rear, Jack Scott, Kent White, Jerry Kane, John
Edes, Herb Hodgkins and Hugh Grant. Center, Phil Edgerly, George
Davis, Tug White, Jerry Jordan and Dick Willey. Front, Gerald
Crabtree and Coach Charles Katsiaficas.
The Ellsworth High School state championship team of ’53 rolled
on to a second state championship in 1954. The squad was made up
of, back row from left, Richard Merrill, Gerald Crabtree,
Terrance Spurling, Phil Edgerly, Ronald Taylor, George
Stevenson, Charles McKenney. Seated, Coach Charles Katsiaficas,
Charles Butts, John Edes, Jack Scott, Kent White, Dick Willey,
Jerry Kane. |
In 1953, Ellsworth
High School became the talk of the city, and indeed all of
Hancock
County,
when the team captured the first of two consecutive state
championships. The Eagles went on to compete in the prestigious New
England tournament held at
Boston
Garden.
Even today, the
names of those history-making players conjure up memories of an era
that has never since been equaled by an Ellsworth team.
Almost any
Ellsworth citizen who was around a half-century ago could probably
name them all: Jack Scott, John Edes, Dick Willey, Kent White, Tug
White, Herb Hodgkins, Jerry Kane, Jerry Jordan, Gerald Crabtree,
Phil Edgerly, George Davis, George Dunn and, of course, coach
Charles Katsiaficas.
The 1953 Eagles
entered the
Eastern Maine tournament with a number two-ranking among Class L schools.
The Eagles barely
survived the quarterfinals, eking out a 53-51 win over Houlton. But
they crushed
Old
Town
84-57 in the semifinals and then upset favored Stearns of
Millinocket 50-47. That earned them Ellsworth’s first-ever Eastern
Maine
title before a crowd of 3,000 fans at Orono.
Then it was on to
the state championship against a strong Rumford squad.
Playing in
Waterville before a crowd of 5,000, said to be the largest ever in
Maine
basketball history, the Eagles were more than equal to the task at
hand.
With Scott and Edes
scoring 15 points apiece and Willey adding 14, Ellsworth took the
lead early and went on to a 60-45 win over the Western Maine
champion Panthers.
That set the stage
for Ellsworth’s matchup with the New London Whalers of Connecticut
in the opening round of the
New England tournament.
There was so much
interest in the game that the Maine Central Railroad scheduled a
special train from Ellsworth to Boston on game day.
Though decidedly
outsized by the
New London
opponents, the Eagles held their own until late in the game when the
Whalers pulled away to a 75-67 win. That brought Ellsworth’s 23-game
win streak to an end.
Scott’s 31-point
effort was the second best ever at the tournament and earned him a
berth on the All-New England tourney squad.
Little did
Ellsworth fans know then that the 1952-53 season was a harbinger for
things to come.
With several of
their key players back for another year, the 1953-54 Eagles may have
been even stronger.
That squad included
Scott, Edes,
Willey,
Kent
White, Kane, Crabtree and Edgerley from the previous year’s team,
along with new faces Dick Merrill, George Stevenson, Charlie Butts,
Terry Spurling and Ron Taylor.
They rolled through
the regular season without a loss, then trounced Waterville and
Bangor in the early rounds of the Eastern Maine tournament. Then
they claimed their second straight Class L crown with a 48-43 win
over Stearns.
This time, the
Eagles faced
South Portland
for the state title. And once again, it wasn’t even close as
Ellsworth ran away to a 61-40 win before another crowd of 5,000 in
Waterville.
For the second year
in a row, the Eagles headed for the Boston Garden and the New
England tournament. And once again, the Eagles proved that they
could play with New England’s best.
In the quarterfinal
round, Ellsworth faced off against the East Providence Townies. The
two teams matched basket for basket through the first half, but in
the third period the Eagles outscored their opponents 16-9. They
built a lead they would never relinquish in a 54-47 win.
That put Ellsworth
into a semifinal game against Connecticut power Hillhouse High of
New Haven.
With more than
1,000 cheering fans in the Boston Garden seats and many more glued
to their radios back home, the Eagles turned in a performance that
drew praise from observers across the region.
Playing a much
bigger and more physical squad, the Ellsworth five refused to be
intimidated.
Over the four
periods of play, the score was tied eight times. The biggest lead at
any time was a six-point Hillhouse edge with six minutes remaining.
The Eagles played
most of the second half without standout guard Kent White, who
fouled out in the early seconds. By game’s end, four of five
Ellsworth starters were on the bench via the foul route.
Even so, the Eagles
had a chance to tie in the waning seconds. They came up just a
single point short, losing 54-53 to the team that went on to win the
New England title.
Edes finished as
the game’s high scorer with 27 points. Both he and Scott were named
to the all-tourney team.
Columnist Jerry
Nason wrote in the Boston Globe: “No kid in the entire tournament
made sounder basketball moves than that Ellsworth player Jack
Scott.”
The Eagles returned
home to great acclaim, with more than 1,500 supporters greeting the
bus when it arrived from
Boston.
Not too many years
later, the
New England tournament became a thing of the past. But the memories
linger in the hearts and minds of local families who recall when,
for a brief moment, Ellsworth basketball had all of
New England taking
note.
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