When Boothbay Region and Penquis Valley High School face off at 9 p.m. Saturday, March 2, in Bangor, it won't be for the first time.

No, the Patriots and Seahawks have some history between them.

The two schools clashed in 2000, when Coach Tony Hamlin's Patriots were able to bring the Golden Ball back to Milo following a 58-45 victory over Coach I.J. Pinkham's Seahawks.

But, this isn't personal or even related to the game played 13 years ago, Hamlin said, adding that the coaches may be the same, but the rest of the cast has changed.

“It's definitely a nice memory for me,” Hamlin said of his team's victory 13 years ago. “I always felt kind of bad though; they had a really, really good team and they were undefeated. But, they won next year.”

Hamlin said he has nothing but respect for the man calling the shots for the Seahawks.

“I.J. has won a lot more games, and we have a lot of respect for (Boothbay),” Hamlin said. “We know we're going to have to play our best if we want to win.”

If the Patriots want to upend the Seahawks, they will need to up their offense and expect big things from captains Trevor Lyford and Isaiah Bess.

“We've struggled to score during the last couple of weeks,” Hamlin said. “We're going to need big games from (Lyford and Bess).”

Bess and Lyford are joined by fellow captain Tyler Pelletier and seniors Cody Herbest, Cody Larrabee, George Cowing, Jason Durant and Zach Eells.

Hamlin said that instead of offensive firepower, the Patriots rely on a stout defense and superior quickness.

“We've played really good defense all season long,” he said. “We have a few scorers, we're quick and we're tenacious.”

Penquis' road to the championship game was filled with some of Class C's toughest teams.

The second-seeded Patriots went into the playoffs with a first-round bye then beat Stearns handily, 51-23, in the quarterfinals. In the semi-finals it was a similar story as Dexter fell to Penquis, 45-23. In the regional finals Penquis faced off with top-seeded Houlton and managed to eke out a win, 46-41, to set up the meeting with Boothbay.

Despite their identical records (20-1), Hamlin said Boothbay and Penquis have very different teams.

“We've had very similar seasons,” Hamlin said. “We had a lot of expectations (going into the season).”

Ben Bulkeley can be reached at 207-633-4620 or bbulkeley@boothbayregister.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BBRegisterBen.