LEWISTON – Just when the offense seemed to get a spark, it fizzled.
The Lewiston girls’ basketball team appeared to be heating up and were on a third-quarter roll Tuesday night. It got the Blue Devils within one point, but it was a short-lived comeback. Mt. Ararat pulled away with eight straight points to end the third quarter and finished off the Blue Devils in a 55-43 victory.
“The level of play was the same, but they hustled a little more and rebounded a little more, and those were the differences in the game,” said Lewiston coach Jim Hood.
The Eagles have 10 players back, including six seniors and six juniors. That experience showed as Mt. Ararat played poised in the second half and answered Lewiston’s challenge.
“They’ve played together,” said Mt. Ararat coach Kelly LaFountain. “We’ve been in a lot of close games, in the preseason, too. Every game we’ve had, we’ve had situations at the end of the game where we had to foul or had to get steals. So they’ve gotten used to doing that. They know they can do it. It’s a matter of getting over the hump and doing it.”
Lewiston (1-1) struggled on the boards and had a number of lapses on defense, and Mt. Ararat took full advantage of that. Jess Stahl led all scorers with 17 points while Kelsi Eiane had 16. Danielle Willey led Lewiston with 13.
“We were trying really hard to run a motion offense,” said LaFountain. “We call it our shuffle offense and try to get a lot of people involved and try to get some good shots out it.”
Lewiston, on the other hand, struggled to find offense consistently. Mt. Ararat forced the Blue Devils to live from the outside.
“You can’t come up empty three or four times like we did,” said Hood. “We didn’t shoot particularly well.”
Lewiston had kept pace with the Eagles in the first half. Foul trouble caught up with the Blue Devils, and Mt. Ararat (1-1) built a 27-23 lead at the half. Though Lewiston fell behind 37-29 midway through the third quarter, the Blue Devils got some shots to fall, hitting five of their first eight. Willey had a pair, and Katie Nadeau hit a 3 to get Lewiston within 37-36 with 3:43 left in the quarter. The Blue Devils didn’t hit another shot in the quarter and were down by nine when Mallory Long scored 2:18 into the fourth.
“In the first half, we played with them,” said Hood. “I wasn’t sure we could do that. I thought they were going to be a good team. They played Oxford Hills tough in a two-point game. I was happy with the way my kids played, but we had one or two lapses that cost us.”
Elaine Emerson answered Lewiston’s rally with a 3, and Eiane followed with three free-throws to end the third up 45-36. Lewiston could only get as close as seven points the rest of the way.
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