After helping to lead third-seeded Medomak Valley to a 62-44 Class A North quarterfinal victory over No. 6 Lawrence, senior guard Brandon Douglas looked forward to watching the next game at the Augusta Civic Center between Gardiner and Brewer.

The Gardiner Area High School transfer insisted his curiosity wasn’t personal. It was strictly business. The winner of that game would be the Panthers’ semifinal opponent.

“They’re not my team anymore, so I don’t have any emotions (about a reunion),” he said.

Douglas, a key contributor at Gardiner last year, moved to Warren to live with his mother and has given the Waldoboro school a boost in the backcourt.

“He’s done a great job,” Medomak coach Nick DePatsy said. “It took a little while to get his feet wet but he’s really adjusted well. He’s very, very quick. He’s an underrated player in my opinion.”

He may not be underrated much longer if he keeps playing as well as he did against Lawrence. With the Bulldogs focused on bottling up leading scorer Nicholas DePatsy, the 5-foot-8 Douglas and backcourt mate Zach Starr got the green light from their coach to get creative and get the Panthers’ transition game in gear.

Douglas responded with 13 points, second on the day behind center Cameron Allaire, and helped spark a second-half surge that put the Panthers in control.

“He makes things happen,” DePatsy said. “When he is doing that for us, we are very much a different team.”

Douglas said he’s enjoying his new home and relishing the chance to play deep into the tournament.

“I love it,” he said. “I love the coach. I love the players. They all support me.”

Brewer beat Gardiner, 50-34, which didn’t seem to make much difference to Douglas but may have disappointed his teammates just a bit. They couldn’t resist playfully accusing him of being an embedded Tiger before Medomak’s semifinal opponent was known.

“They were trying to make it seem like I was going to try to lose with Medomak so Gardiner would end up (in the regional final),” a smiling Douglas said.

• • •

The less his Greenville boys basketball teams thinks, the better.

OK, so first-year coach Bill Foley was joking after his squad pounded A.R. Gould 70-28 in a D South quarterfinal game Saturday at the Augusta Civic Center, but the message to the team was clear: Forget about the past.

“We haven’t won a playoff game in five years and we also have a mental block in this building,” he said. “I don’t know why. That is why we wanted to press from the start. We wanted to press to create some layup opportunities. The last thing we wanted to do was to come in here and not shoot well out of the gate.”

“If we do that, then they start thinking, and we don’t want them thinking,” added Foley with a laugh.

The Lakers (14-5) received a strong performance from Coach Foley’s son, Nick, who scored a game-high 23 points.

Next up for Greenville: Top-seeded Valley (19-0) in a regional semifinal at 11:30 a.m., Wednesday at the Civic Center.

“It’s going to be a battle,” Bill Foley said. “An uphill battle.”

• • •

What the Rangeley boys basketball team lacked in height it more than made up for in spirit in its Class D South quarterfinal against undefeated Valley on Saturday.

While the Lakers ultimately lost the game rather decidedly, 62-33, they certainly did not make it easy on the top-seeded Cavaliers. At times, Rangeley frustrated Valley with its quickness.

“They’re a quick team,” Valley senior captain Cody Laweryson said. “We played at Rangeley and they did the same thing to us. We were up by only about 10 at halftime.”

Of the Lakers’ five starters, only Ricky Thompson is taller than six feet tall — listed at 6-foot-3 in the program but more likely closer to 6-1 or 6-2. Add in guards Carl Trafton (5-3), Devon Clark (5-8), Zach Trafton (5-8) and Kyle LaRochelle (5-10) and Rangeley’s size — or lack thereof — proved to be both a strength and a weakness this season.

“We have to have a mentality where you’re going to have to earn every square inch of the court, and if you beat us at the end of the day hopefully you walk off the court and say that wasn’t easy,” Rangeley coach Jeff LaRochelle said. “That’s how we have to play. It can be done.”

“…I have some shooters and I have some speed. That fits well in basketball if you know how to play.”