POLAND — Michaella Arsenault was back on the floor after suffering a quad injury, Emily Bolduc resurrected her scoring touch in the fourth quarter and Poland’s matchup-zone defense proved to be a stifling headache for Freeport on Friday night.
Life was good for the Knights, as Arsenault threw in 28 points and knocked down four 3-pointers, allowing Poland to open up on Freeport with a 52-31 victory in a girls’ basketball game.
The Knights’ defense clamped down on Freeport’s star player Nina Davenport, who scored 10 points for the Falcons.
“Nina Davenport is one of the best players in our conference, and she has been for years,” Poland coach Darren Littlefield said. “But we knew we just had to focus on her defensively. Lindsay Theriault, one of senior captains, a great defender and hard worker, and she did well defending her last year, just picked up early fouls and had to sit down. So we had to take turns with people until she could get back on the floor.”
But the Knights’ senior leadership banded together and held the fort down as Littlefield made substitutions for Theriault.
Bolduc erupted in the in final quarter, dropping in a pair of 3-pointers and scoring 12 points.
“When Emily is on the floor she rises up, she makes the kids play better,” Littlefield said. “Michaella stepped up and shot the ball very well tonight for us. She’s been out. She just practiced two days this week and she came back.
“She has that great shot and we just moved the ball. They played matchup zone and she knew when to slide into that slot and we skipped the ball across to her and she knocked the shots down.”
The Knights owned the court in the first quarter and their defense prevented the Falcons from scoring for nearly seven minutes. Arsenault scored 12 of her 28 points in the first quarter, including depositing two of her four 3-pointers.
The second quarter proved to be a cooling-off period for the Knights. Freeport got back into the game by making five foul shots. But Arsenault stepped in again and scored seven points to hold the line for the Knights.
Bolduc put the finishing touches on Freeport in the fourth quarter with a 10-point performance that included two 3-pointers and a pair of layups. Arsenault’s key 3-point play gave the Knights a 46-28 lead with just minutes left in the game.
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