AUGUSTA — The biggest challenge the Rangeley girls’ received Thursday didn’t come from a game Searsport club that had the Lakers in the ropes for most of the teams’ Western Class D semifinal.

The real confrontation came from Rangeley coach Heidi Deery.

“I just said, ‘We’re not going home like this,'” Deery said. “It’s one thing when you come and play your best game and you lose. We can live with that. We were not playing our game and sticking to the gameplan. I think we were just a little rattled. We came out big and they answered the call. We haven’t had a lot of that this year.”

The Lakers have cruised past opponents all season, but the Vikings weren’t so accommodating. Searsport had Rangeley down by as many as seven points, but in the second half, the Lakers showed what they were made off, rallying for a 39-35 win over the Vikings. Rangeley returns to the Western D final to play Richmond Saturday morning at the Augusta Civic Center.

“We haven’t been behind all year,” senior guard Seve Deery-DeRaps said, “so it’s been a while. I knew we could do it if we kept playing and not let it get into our heads that we were down. We were going to keep playing no matter what.”

The Lakers had to face a hot-shooting Searsport club that didn’t seem intimidated by a Rangeley team that had won games by an average of 45 points. The Lakers also had to deal with foul trouble and some early game jitters that led to sloppy play and an abundance of turnovers.

“I think we all knew we didn’t want it to be our last game,” said senior forward Taylor Esty, who rallied her teammates by stressing that it was “prime time.”

Esty finished with 16 points for the Lakers (19-0). Deery-DeRaps had nine while Blayke Morin and Maddison Egan each had six. The Vikings (12-8) got 16 from Melinda Ogden, including four 3’s. Brittany Ward added 13.

“We knew we had to contend with their shooters,” Deery said. “We had a game plan. We didn’t really stick to it at times but hats off to Searsport. They brought their A-game. They hit their shots and forced us to not run our offense for a little bit, which hurt us. Turnovers hurt us as well.”

Ogden hit a trio of 3s in the first quarter and Ward scored seven points as the Vikings opened a six-point lead in the first quarter. A free throw by Egan and a rebound by Esty cut it to 17-14 to end the first.

Rangeley had seven turnovers in the first quarter and shot just 2-for-16 in the second as Searsport opened the lead to 27-20. Ogden and Anna Bucklin each hit 3s while Ward had another four points.

“They’re a great team and they play a really tough schedule,” said Deery of Searsport, which plays mostly Eastern C and D teams. “If they played in the East-West Conference, they would have been one of the top teams in the league. “

The Lakers settled down in the second half and started changing the momentum. Morin had been nursing foul trouble, but Rangeley got great efforts by Sydney Royce and Michaela Shorey off the bench. Natasha Haley was given the defensive assignment of covering Ogden.

“Their top shooter, when I was guarding her, I couldn’t get through the screens,” Esty said. “Once we got (Haley) on her, she moved through the screens. That really slowed down their offense.”

Ogden was held to just four points and one field goal in the second half. Bucklin and Ward had just two points each. The Vikings as a team managed just two field goals in the second half.

The rallying cry from the seniors on the team at halftime was better defensive play.

“The second half we definitely came to play defense the way we wanted to and we just kept our composure,” Deery-DeRaps said.

The Vikings were up 31-24 late in the third, but Deery-DeRaps hit a 3, something the Lakers hadn’t gotten much of in the first half. Morin followed with a rebound basket that made it 31-29 entering the fourth.

“I hadn’t had a lot of looks all day,” Deery-DeRaps said. “They definitely had me covered. We had to take what we got. They left me open. So I took it.”

Rangeley opened the fourth with another Morin basket off a rebound to tie it. Then Egan sank another free throw to give Rangeley the lead. After Ward scored in the post, Ogden sank a pair of free throws to make it 35-32 with 3:34 left. The Vikings never scored again.

“It took us a little bit but once we got going, we were okay,” Deery said.

Morin scored in the paint to cut the lead to 35-34 with 2:58 left. Then Esty scored off a Morin feed for the lead with 2:41. Deery-DeRaps scored off a fast break and then sank a free throw to complete it.

The Lakers missed some key free throws down the stretch and had some turnovers. It gave the Vikings the chance to work for the equalizer but Searsport missed those shots down the stretch, finishing 1-for-9 from the floor in the fourth.

“We were all amped up and lot of us were scrambling but Seve and I tried to tell them that we had to settle down,” Esty said. “The game wasn’t over until the final buzzer goes off. We really just settled down and got a few baskets and that really picked us up.”

kmills@sunjournal.com