FREEPORT — Four minutes decided Spruce Mountain’s 66-46 Western Maine Conference boys’ basketball victory over Freeport on Thursday night.
After a tight first frame, the visiting Phoenix got hot, and got hot fast, with an 11-2 run in the second quarter that forced a Freeport timeout. The short break hardly slowed things down, though, as the Spruce Mountain players kept getting open and their shots kept falling.
By halftime, the Falcons’ two-point deficit had turned into a 17-point deficit, and that was that.
“Tonight, about a four-minute stretch,” Freeport coach Bill Ridge said, “that we mentally broke down. When we got back, we played a good second half — down three in the second half, down two in the first quarter. So the 15-point second quarter, that’s the difference.”
The Phoenix’s charge started with the final shot of the first quarter, a 3-pointer from junior guard Mason Shink that gave Spruce Mountain (3-0) a 16-14 lead. That was followed by two big shots to begin the second — Shink and Caulin Parker hit back-to-back treys to force a timeout by Ridge.
All that came after the break was a bucket inside and three straight Phoenix treys.
“We didn’t close down,” Ridge said. “We jogged back on defense, which made us a step slow closing out, and we didn’t do a great job of communicating.”
Nearly all of the 3-pointers came from quick dishes outside from guards Austin Darling (15 points, six assists) and Noah Preble (15 points, five rebounds). Shink also scored eight of his 13 total points during the decisive 21-6 second-quarter run.
“Fortunately for us, you make a couple shots and the energy picks up,” Spruce Mountain coach Scott Bessey said. “All the sudden, you want to play defense a little bit harder. Shouldn’t be that way, but unfortunately that’s the trap we fall into. Our energy is related to us making shots.”
Bessey didn’t have to worry about energy for the rest of the night as, on top of the shot-making, Spruce Mountain was also setting the tone with a pressure-packed, high-tempo game plan. Swished 3-pointers were often followed by steals and more shot attempts, leaving Freeport (0-3) flustered.
“When we played them full-court, man-to-man, straight-up with no traps, I think that worked the best,” Shink said. “They didn’t like our pressure.”
“We like to go that high energy,” Ridge said. “We’ve got a lot of good athletes on our team, but we’re asking to play at kind of two speeds. We’re asking to go as hard as they can, and then when they get the ball, to be slow and be patient. That can be tough for kids and that’s what we saw tonight.”
Pressure back
Freeport played a high-press of its own to start the game and jumped out to a 4-0 lead after a pair of Spruce Mountain turnovers. The tactic worked throughout the frame, during which Toby Holt (eight total rebounds) and Connor Dostie (five total boards) pulled in offensive rebounds and converted on multiple second-chance buckets.
The Phoenix missed all outside-shot attempts in the frame, and things were dead even.
“I didn’t think it was going to be easy,” Bessey said. “We beat them by 30-plus last year, plus it’s a road game. They’re kids, so a little bit of over-confidence, no matter how much you talk about it, seeps in. I feared that we may start flat and that’s what happened.”
Eventually, though, Darling made one extra cut or Parker found the open man and the Freeport pressure snapped.
Suddenly there was an open shooter on every play.
“When they broke our pressure, we’d be kind of in a scramble,” Ridge said. “Which is good, and that’s actually kind of what we shoot for when they break the pressure, but nobody was communicating so there was a breakdown and they got that penetration-kick.”
Once Spruce Mountain got comfortable and started dictating play and on both ends of the floor, both coaches knew what was coming.
“We played our basketball,” Shink said of the second quarter. “We didn’t let them dictate what we did. Our decision making was way better. We started knocking down some shots, which helps.”
“I knew that if we could just hit a couple shots that we could get our pressure going, get them going fast, turn them over, get easier shots,” Bessey said. “That’s kind of what happened.”
Holt, who sat out most of the fourth quarter, paced the Falcons with a team-high 15 points on top of six offensive boards. He converted a hoop-and-harm play at the start of the third quarter that briefly cut the lead down to 14, but both sides scored 15 in the frame.
Ethan Sclar hit one of only two Freeport treys on the night and finished with seven points, while Matt Neilsen notched eight and Caleb Salter pulled down four rebounds in the fourth quarter.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
