LEWISTON — Trailing Edward Little by eight with 2:55 left, Lewiston coach Tim Farrar called a time out.
Farrar’s Blue Devils haven’t quit all year, despite a 3-11 record. And for stretches of Tuesday night’s game, their defense gave the Red Eddies fits. So Lewiston had reasons to believe that with a couple of more stops and a couple of hoops, it still could pull off their biggest win of the year.
But the Red Eddies were coming off their first loss of the season and they weren’t about to let a rivalry game slip through their fingers. A pair of steals and a thunderous dunk later, they put the pesky Blue Devils away, 57-43, in a physical late-season KVAC game.
Senior forward Jarod Norcross Plourde scored a game-high 25 points to go with eight rebounds and six steals to lead the Red Eddies (14-1). Senior Samatar Iman chipped in with 13 points and 10 rebounds and sophomore Wol Maiwen added 12 points, nine rebounds, three blocks and three steals off the bench.
EL held Lewiston to seven points in the final seven minutes while forcing eight turnovers to pull away after Lewiston cut the lead to two early in the fourth.
“We just focused on each possession and getting the stop every time,” Norcross Plourde said. “That was the key to the defense.”
Garrett Poussard and Ibn Khalid led Lewiston (3-12) with 13 points apiece. Khalid also had eight rebounds and five steals.
Poussard’s steal and layup off the Eddies’ inbound attempt to start the fourth pulled the Devils within 38-36.
But as they had done much of the night when they needed a basket, EL went inside to Norcross Plourde, who scored eight straight points to help them extend the margin to 46-38 with 3:31 left.
“We wanted to get paint touches as much as we could,” Norcorss Plourde said. “They obviously were face-guarding Darby (Shea) and Samatar, so we wanted to get the ball to (guards) C.J. (Jipson) and Tyler (Morin) and get them in the paint. We settled a little bit at the beginning but as the game went on we went more and more inside.”
“We haven’t done that as much this year as last year,” EL coach Mike Adams said. “We said last year, ‘Paint wins.’ We haven’t gotten the ball into the paint, but we did tonight.”
Things disintegrated quickly for the Blue Devils from there. After the time out, Wol stole the ball and finished at the other end with another one of his now-patented monstrous jams that made it 50-40. Another turnover led to a three-point play by Iman and put the game away.
“I thought it was the turnovers allowed them to not have to play play five-on-five,” Lewiston coach Tim Farrar said. “We did a good job in the half court defensively and containing their explosive players… Their best player, we didn’t have an answer for him.”
It seemed Norcross Plourde would have the only answer to a sloppy second quarter that saw the teams combine to miss their first 11 shots. Neither side scored until Iman hit a pair of free throws 3:12 into the quarter.
Norcross Plourde scored 10 of the final 12 EL points of the quarter, including a 3-pointer just before the buzzer that made it 25-16 Eddies at intermission.
Back-to-back hoops by Morin raised the cushion as high as 13 before Poussard, Khalid and Luke Madore (eight points, eight rebounds) led an 11-2 Lewiston run to pull the Devils back within striking distance.
“The kids have a lot of heart,” Farrar said. “You look at our record and say ‘Well, that’s where we’re at.’ But the Cheverus game, the Oxford Hills game, Morse the other night and then tonight, the kids are competing. I love this group because of that. They’re not playing out the string. They come to practice ever night to work hard.”
“Once a team starts to not be in a flow and not be really sure of themselves, it’s tougher to score,” Adams said. “We got a couple of things going there in that fourth quarter and it made it a little bit easier for us. Lewiston did a good job of mixing up some defensive looks and not guarding some guys and we’re not used to that. I was proud of how our guys played together and adjusted.”
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