GRAY — The Gray-New Gloucester girls basketball team used their size, strength, and quickness to suffocate Lake Region to remain unbeaten with a 41-23 victory in Class B basketball on Wednesday night.
Overcoming an early deficit and a slim halftime advantage, the Patriots (11-0) gave up just a two field goals in the second half while allowing only seven points to pull away for the win.
“Our defense got very good in the second half. We weren’t clean offensively tonight but our defense came on,” coach Mike Andreasen said.
The Lakers opened the scoring with a quick three-point basket from junior Chandler True before the Patriots scored six unanswered points, including four from Izzy DeTroy. The Patriots struggled to connect on another field goal for the remainder of the quarter. A layup by True and a hoop by Lauren Jakobs gave Lake Region (6-5) a 9-6 advantage after one quarter.
With another three by True and a Brooke Harriman lay up, the Lakers opened the second quarter with a 5-0 run. Trailing 14-6, the shooting woes continued for Gray-New Gloucester, making just three of 11 from the field.
The Patriots began to put the clamps on Lake Region with Brianna Jordan and Skye Conley showing their presence in the second quarter hauling in six rebounds including three on the defensive end to start the transition for Gray-New Gloucester.
At the 2:10 mark, Lake Region entered the bonus and Gray-New Gloucester took advantage of the free throw line, hitting five of their next six free throws to close out the half with a 17-16 lead.
“I didn’t think we were going to have the lead going into the half,” Andreasen said. “We made our free throws and that kept us in it.”
The Patriot defense came out to play to start the second half. Lake Region managed just a layup from True on very few opportunities as Conley had a pair of blocks underneath while grabbing a couple of offensive rebounds, putting one back and drawing a foul off the other, resulting in a pair of made free throws.
“At the half, coach told us there are going to be games like this where it’s going to be tight and not to over-think it,” Conley said.
A hoop by Alicia Dumont and a pair of layups from DeTroy, including one off a steal for a breakaway, gave Gray-New Gloucester a 27-19 lead.
By the fourth quarter, the patience of the Patriots passing game paid off hitting six field goals putting together their best quarter of the night, scoring 14 points.
“We started to relax a little more on offense and we were able to execute our inside-out game a lot better. We weren’t confident with our shots in the first half but we were able to see that,” said Conley.
Conley finished with a game high 12 points, capped off by a smooth bounce pass from classmate DeTroy for an easy layup making it 37-21 with just 4:20 remaining. The senior also grabbed six rebounds.
DeTroy followed with eight points along with four steals. Jordan also had eight points and Grace Kariotis finished with seven, including 5-7 from the free throw line. After trailing 14-6 midway through the second quarter, the Patriots allowed just nine points, outscoring them 35-9 to end the game.
True paced the Lakers with 12 points while Harriman added six in the loss.
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