PORTLAND — Louie DiStasio gets it. No need to draw him a picture or spend time explaining. Saturday night’s basketball game at the Cumberland County Civic Center will be the most important of the season.

Until Cheverus plays its next game. If there is a next game this winter.

“If we don’t play with more courage and more intensity,” said DiStasio, ticking off several more attributes, “this is our last game. We know that.”

He plays for the private high school that public school fans absolutely relish cheering against, and DiStasio gets that, too.

Outside their rather insular Cheverus community, he and his teammates feel less love and more resentment. The accusation heard for decades still sounds: Cheverus recruits talent from public schools. Perish the thought that student-athletes and their families might pitch themselves to Cheverus because of the success in the classroom and on the playing fields.

Bonny Eagle plays Cheverus. Rural school versus urban school. The country communities that send their children to Bonny Eagle will empty out Saturday night to attend the Western Class A championship game. Most in the expected large crowd will be pro-Bonny Eagle. Many will be anti-Cheverus.

“Oh, I know it,” said DiStasio, grinning and shaking his head. If you play sports at Cheverus, you turn a deaf ear. “We’re so into the game, we don’t hear it. If we need it to motivate us, we know it’s there and we’ll use it.”

He’s 6-foot-3, a junior, and unlike some teammates, has been on this stage. Cheverus lost key seniors off last year’s championship team. For some of their replacements, the bigness of Wednesday night’s semifinal with Portland became a factor. When Cheverus went up 11-0 to start the game, it didn’t relax, said DiStasio. “We wanted to score more. We tried to get them way under. We got impatient and starting turning the ball over.”

Cheverus went for the knockout punch in the first half. The idea was to build on the lead until Portland was left with no hope. Cheverus beat Portland by 21 and 27 points this season.

Portland ducked the big uppercut and counter punched. Instead of losing hope, Portland found confidence. For much of the second and third quarters, Cheverus couldn’t get back to the comfort levels of previous games. Until it looked to DiStasio and Peter Gwilym and regained some attitude.

Although if you press DiStasio, it was the ball he punched away from a Portland player from behind that was even more satisfying.

“It’s a great feeling. In a close game like that, get the turnover and get two easy points.”

Bonny Eagle plays Cheverus and there are new and old story lines.

Phil Bourassa is the young but poised 25-year-old Bonny Eagle coach matching wits with Bob Brown, the 70-something coach with the spirit of a young man, if not the knees.

Throw in the fact that Brown coached at Bonny Eagle in the late 1990s. Know that Bourassa has used Brown, as well as Portland Coach Joe Russo and Rick Simonds, the former St. Joseph’s College and Bonny Eagle coach, as mentors.

Remember that Cheverus won the Class A title last year. Bonny Eagle was a footnote, a team with a losing record. Bourassa learned from his mistakes.

Bonny Eagle has freshman point guard Dustin Cole, as precocious as Nick Pelotte was some 10 years ago. Pelotte was the freshman point guard for Valley High as it began its astounding run to seven straight Class D state titles. At the request of Bourassa, his college teammate and roommate, Pelotte has been to Bonny Eagle not once but twice to work with Cole in practice.

DiStasio was a wide receiver on the championship Cheverus football team quarterbacked by Gwilym. That team didn’t lose a game. This basketball team hasn’t lost a game. Not that winning one more is going to be easy. Cheverus players and coaches watched Bonny Eagle beat Deering in the other semifinal. DiStasio was impressed. Bonny Eagle didn’t rattle.

By the end of Wednesday night, neither did Cheverus.

Play the game. 

Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

ssolloway@pressherald.com