Brooke Reynolds is among a handful of former top Maine basketball high school players plying their trade at Central Maine Community College these days, and coach Andrew Morong is happy to have them all.
“The talent level in Maine High School basketball is high, if you do your homework,” Morong said. “You’re always looking for the player out there who fits. They might not always be the best player all the time, but we’re lucky this year that a lot of the girls we have locally, and we’re going to be getting next year, not only do they fit here, but they’re the best, either on their teams on in their conference, or in some cases the state.”
Reynolds, an Edward Little High school graduate from Poland, proved Morong’s point and then some Sunday. The talented forward knocked down 21 points on 9-of-16 shooting and hauled in five rebounds to help lead the CMCC Mustangs to a 71-60 win over NHTI in the Yankee Small College Conference final in South Portland.
“This is just a combination of six-plus months of hard work,” Morong said. “We hold the girls to very high standards in the classroom, socially and on the court, and this was just about trusting the process from Day 1 to now. We didn’t spend any time focusing on the championship, we just focused on the little things that lead up to it, and we knew that if we did that, the scoreboard would take care of itself.”
Reynolds added a pair of steals for the Mustangs (30-1, 15-0 YSCC), who faced a stiff challenge from NHTI in three of the game’s four quarters. In the decisive second frame, though, CMCC was dominant.
“Our defense, we started communicating more, our defense kind of locked in,” Morong said. “We limited their offensive rebounding opportunities, got a hand up on their shooters, and when you’re stopping a team from scoring, especially a team that shoots a lot of threes like they did, it leads to long rebounds, and we got out in transition and that leads to easier baskets. Once we start scoring, that’s when our defense is most effective.”
After NHTI took a 17-16 edge into the second, the Mustangs clamped down, outscoring their opponent 17-6. The teams traded shots the rest of the way, but NHTI never got close enough to make a real run at the lead.
Lewiston High School graduate Kristina Blais led the Mustangs’ defensive effort with three steals, four defensive rebounds and a block. Edward Little product Eraleena Gethers-Hairston led all players with 11 rebounds, including nine on the defensive glass.
On offense, Spruce Mountain graduate Nicole Hamblin added 12 points as the team’s second-leading scorer. Blais finished with eight, while Gethers-Haiston and Tianna Harriman, also an EL grad, pumped in six each.
A trademark of the Mustangs’ play of late — and particularly Sunday — is their ability to sniff out and take quality shots at the right time. The team’s field goal percentage Sunday was 49.1 percent.
“If you look back a month ago, you would not see that same field goal percentage,” Morong said. “We just spent a lot of time in practice the past couple of weeks focusing on when to take the shot, what the right shots is, and a good shot versus a great shot. To figure that out with freshmen and sophomores only, it takes a while to get there, and it’s happening now for us, and I think it’s only going to get better.”
At the center of it all, on both ends of the floor, though, has been Reynolds.
“Brooke is just a tremendous woman,” Morong said. “She’s just so much fun to coach because she works so hard. She doesn;t take a play off, she has a nose for the ball and a knack for finding a way to create havoc on defense. She’s the lead of our press, the head of the snake for us, and she’s just a great all-around player.”
The top-ranked team nationally in the USCAA Division II poll, CMCC was almost assured an at-large bid to the national tournament at Penn State-Fayette in March, but with the win over NHTI on Sunday, it has earned the YSCC’s automatic bid.
After a day off to enjoy the win, Morong said Monday, it’s back to business.
“We just hone in on our own skills,” Morong said. “We played two great teams this week in UMaine-Augusta and NHTI, and anytime you play a solid, team like them, you learn a lot about yourself. I think we saw some things that we need to tighten up and take care of, and we’re going to focus on us and playing our game.
“We’ll enjoy the championship (Sunday) night, and then we’ll start the film process, the scouting process (Monday).”
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