JAY — The Spruce Mountain Phoenix turned their eye-opening 3-point shooting into an art form, and then a spectacle.
Spruce’s long-range ordinance fell like leaves from a tree during a cold Maine fall and had the entire gym looking up for three quarters.
Spruce’s (9-1) outside shooting certainly helped deliver a 65-38 victory over Leavitt in a boys’ basketball game Thursday night.
But Spruce Mountain coach Scott Bessey wanted his Phoenix to approach the Hornets from the perimeter.
“That’s how we play,” Bessey said. “I think this is the best we shot all season. I can’t wait to do some stats. We had 11 (3-pointers), which may be the season high, but I think we should have hit more.
“It is not because we missed. I just think when we started off the game … they kind of pulled it back and stalled so we missed a couple minutes of game play there.
“I know the perimeter game for them, scouted them and are familiar with them. I know they are not really strong from behind the arc so I wanted to start the game in a matchup zone.
“They tried to hold it, but I knew the whole game wasn’t going to be that way. I knew once we hit a shot or two we were going to put our press on and try to speed the game up. That’s exactly what happened. I was happy with the effort and everybody on the team.”
The Phoenix barrage began in the first quarter.
Senior forward Caulin Parker and senior guard Noah Preble each dropped in three 3-pointers, with Parker coming up with the game-high 16 points. Preble was right behind Parker with 13 points. Austin Darling was a force on defense and scored nine points for the Phoenix.
In the first half, Spruce Mountain opened up from the perimeter and showered Leavitt with seven 3-pointers. Throw in a couple of technical shots and the Phoenix found themselves with a 35-17 lead at halftime.
Spruce’s long-range shots kept on falling with no letup.
The Hornets (1-9) held the advantage in height, but the Phoenix more than made up with it with their scrappy defense and precision foul shooting. Spruce Mountain held Leavitt to single-digit scoring for the three quarters.
Leavitt senior forward Jack Sylvester threw in the team-high 12 points.
“They are of kind of hot and cold with their 3s and they were hot tonight,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “So we knew that was going to be the case it was going to be an uphill battle. They were hot to see them shoot like that, it makes it difficult.
“We have some stretches when we don’t score very well. We went through one of those stretches. They hit some 3’s. It seems like it went from four to 14 in a hurry.”
In the fourth quarter, things got feisty and physical when the teams’ replacements stepped in to finish out Spruce’s lopsided win.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
