AUBURN — This time it was Edward Little that had the hot hand, and it belonged to Ashlee Arnold.
The Red Eddies sophomore scored a career-high 32 points to lead EL to an impressive 54-34 win over previously unbeaten Hampden.
“I just thought that Hampden was not going to beat us again,” said Arnold.
The Broncos, ranked seventh in last year’s Eastern A tournament, ousted the Red Eddies 48-35 in the quarterfinals. It was a hot-shooting second quarter that opened up the lead for Hampden while EL shot just 2-for-25 in the opening half at the Augusta Civic Center.
Tuesday evening, it was a different story. Arnold paced EL’s offense while the Red Eddies (6-0) produced a superb defensive effort. Between EL’s press and a persistent half-court defense, the Broncos (6-1) struggled, shooting 12-for-58 while turning the ball over 18 times.
“They’re one of the best teams in Eastern Maine,” said EL coach Craig Jipson. “They have the seniors that really hurt us last year in the tournament. They have everybody back. I respect their program so much. They’re such a great team. It was one of those games where I don’t really know what happened. We had a scout and our kids really carried out the scout. Our gym really can be difficult for some teams to shoot in.”
It was two 3’s by Arnold that turned the tide to start the second half. Though EL had led for much of the first two quarters, Hampden was within 26-20 at halftime.
Early in the third, Arnold hit a corner 3 and then followed with another to make it 32-20.
“I was just feeling that we had to get in the lead,” said Arnold.
Frankie Lally added a 3 while Miranda Martin and Dawna Daigle added hoops as EL maintained the advantage.
“We had our rhythm going,” said Arnold. “Frankie stepped up good. Kory Norcross stepped up good. I just knew we need to keep the intensity up.”
The lead was up to 15 to end the third. Hampden shot just 2-for-20 in the fourth while Arnold padded the lead with eight free throws.
“The big thing was those two 3’s to start the second half,” said Jipson. “It got the lead up to double digits, and to the kids’ credit, they never folded.”
Hampden was averaging 60 points per game. Whitney Moore led the Broncos with 12, most of which came in the first half. EL wanted to focus on eliminating the open outside shot. Hampden’s Katelyn DeRaps finished with just four. She had 15 in the tourney win last February.
“We really respect DeRaps and (Michaela) Stephenson,” said Jipson. “We couldn’t let them get wide open 3’s. We also had to stop them from going to the hoop. We talked as a team that we had to do both.”
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