MONMOUTH — For most Mountain Valley Conference boys’ basketball teams, the only prayer against Dirigo is to sit back in a 2-3 zone and hope that the Cougars can’t hit their outside shots.
The strategy nearly worked two weeks ago for Lisbon, which took the Cougars to overtime. It paid dividends a while for Monmouth on Saturday night, when missed layups were the only thing that kept the Mustangs from leading at halftime.
Then came the inevitable second-half barrage. Dirigo drained six of its eight 3-pointers after intermission, rushed Monmouth’s patient offense with extended full-court pressure and raced away with a 72-43 MVC at Stu Foster Memorial Gym.
“In the beginning of the year we struggled shooting 3s,” Dirigo sophomore Cooper Chiasson said. “Now we’re getting in that rhythm. We have great shooters on our team.”
Chiasson and senior point guard Riley Robinson each rained down a pair of second-half treys for Dirigo (6-0). Clay Swett and Gavin Hebert both nailed one.
Robinson flirted with a quadruple double, finishing with 30 points, nine assists, eight rebounds and seven steals. Chiasson added 15 points, Swett chipped in 12, and Hebert had eight for Dirigo, which increased its tenuous 28-20 halftime margin to 46-28 after three periods.
“If we can shoot the ball well, we’re really hard to guard,” Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson said. “We can get the ball to the rim. We have good guys inside. Games where we’ve struggled and haven’t scored, we haven’t shot it well.”
Luke Thombs led Monmouth (2-3) with 15 points. Nick Sanborn added 11, and Travis Hartford notched eight to go with a team-high six boards.
The Mustangs shot only 29 percent from the field and 53 percent from the line, while the Cougars crashed the boards to the tune of a 43-20 disparity.
Monmouth’s first-half patience unraveled in a fistful of rushed, one-and-done possessions in the third quarter, a trend that only enhanced Dirigo’s running game.
“We came in with a game plan and I thought we were going well. They didn’t shoot the ball real well in the first half,” Monmouth coach Lucas Turner said. “Then the first four possessions, I think we were on offense five seconds. Four different guys, first pass down, they shot it. We definitely got outside the game plan a little bit there.”
Swett scored inside off a feed from Gavin Arsenault to make it a double-digit lead out of the gate. Robinson followed with a steal and a coast-to-coast layup, then drained a 3-pointer courtesy of a kick-out from Chiasson for a 35-20 cushion with 5:41 to go in the third.
Monmouth committed five of its 11 turnovers in the period and shot only 3-for-12 from the field. Hunter Richardson’s basket at the 4:36 mark ended a drought of nearly eight minutes without a field goal.
“We definitely had better intensity,” Magnusson said. “We weren’t getting in the passing lanes the way we needed to. We definitely did that in the third quarter, and we knocked down shots.”
“When we slow it down, we tend not to move the ball as much. Beating people up the floor definitely was the key tonight,” Chiasson added. “We had to try to move and pass the ball as much as we could.”
Dirigo was even more efficient in the fourth quarter, when Robinson scored 11 and found Chiasson for a pair of 3-pointers. The Cougars hit 8-of-9 from the field before clearing the bench.
“That might be the best quarter they played all year when they pounded us,” Turner said.
Sanborn scored six to keep Monmouth within five, 16-11, at the end of the first quarter.
Three missed free throws and a dearth of field goals for the final 4:27 stifled the Mustangs’ upset bid in the second quarter. Chiasson and Hebert scored off the glass to complement Robinson’ six slashing points.
“He’s good,” Turner said of Robinson. “When he penetrates like that and kicks it out and they get rolling, they’re a well-oiled machine on the fast break.”
koakes@sunjournal.com
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