JAY — In their own words, Spruce Mountain thrives on getting opponents flustered and frazzled with their trapping pressure.
In Saturday’s battle of MVC unbeatens, the Phoenix flustered and frazzled Dirigo plenty, especially during a pair of tongue-twisting runs.
Spruce Mountain took control with a 9-0 run to start the second quarter, then used a 13-2 run to pull away in the third quarter in a 50-37 win.
Bolstered a their 1-2-2 fullcourt press, the Phoenix converted 31 Dirigo turnovers into lights-out shooting in the middle quarters.
“We go on little spurts,” said Spruce Mountain junior center Samantha Richards, who had eight points, five rebounds and four assists. “The energy in our press is really high and we can get people flustered and we go with that.”
“When we have all five people, with all of that energy, trapping, it’s going to get them a little frazzled. We all work together to make that happen,” junior guard Kailee Newcomb said.
Nicole Hamblin and Newcomb led the Phoenix with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Four other players ranged between five and eight points. Jessica Conant led the Cougars with 12 points while Kelsey Hutchins chipped in with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Bolstered by a swarming 1-2-2 trap, the Phoenix (6-0) broke free after an 11-11 first quarter with the first nine points of the second.
Hamblin kicked it off with the game’s only 3-pointer. A pair of free throws by Newcomb, Richards’ putback of her own miss, followed by her nice assist on Emily Hogan’s hoop, made it 20-11 a little over three minutes into the period.
Hutchins broke the string with a putback, but Spruce, which shot 60 percent for the quarter, answered with a 7-1 spurt hilighted by Hamblin’s midcourt steal and pretty pass in transition to Newcomb.
“We got some stuff in transition off of our defense. We had a couple of good runs during the game. We never really sustained it, though,” Spruce Mountain coach Gavin Kane said. “That was a little bit disappointing, but that’s credit to the Dirigo kids, too. I thought they played with more energy than we did today and played with a purpose. We were very up-and-down.”
The Phoenix led by as much as 13 in the half before taking a nine-point advantage into the locker room.
“A lot of the turnovers were unforced,” Dirigo coach Reggie Weston. “We wanted to go tic-tac-toe and move the ball instead of having a girl make the one big pass. But it was good defense.”
Dirigo (5-1) gave Spruce a taste of its own medicine with their own 1-2-2 press to start the second half. That led to hoops by Conant and Hutchins that whittled the deficit to five, 31-26. But the Phoenix quickly regrouped.
“We’ve been focusing a lot on trying to keep our composure, so once we realized we were getting a little hectic, we tried to slow down and really think things through,” Richards said. “I think that helped us get back into our rhythm.”
It was some rhythm. The Phoenix made seven of 11 shots in the third quarter. Richards had the hottest hand with three baskets, including a layup after Alex Bessey dribbled through Dirigo’s press and dished it off to put the lead back into double digits for good at 38-28 with 2:16 left in the period.
Richards set up a cutting Emily Keene for a layup then found Hogan inside for two. Hogan capped the 8-0 quarter-ending run with a layup off transition for a 44-28 lead, their largest.
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