St. Dominic Academy’s Maddie Leslie (12) defends against Hyde’s Maeve Dunn during their game in Bath on Tuesday. (Eric Maxim/Brunswick Times Record)
BATH — After a slow start, the St. Dom’s girls netted 20 second-quarter points to pull away and cruise to a 52-21 victory over Hyde in Class C South basketball action Tuesday.
The win puts St. Dom’s at 9-6 and on the cusp of hosting a preliminary game in the Class C South tournament. The Saints host North Yarmouth Academy on Friday.
The loss drops Hyde to 4-8. The Wolfpack host Hebron on Friday.
The Saints hopped out to a 4-0 lead four minutes into the contest, prompting a Hyde timeout. The Wolfpack got a Maeve Dunn basket followed by a Jada Holford layup to knot the score at four. But a Becca Zimmerman trey pull St. Dom’s back in from with under three minutes left in the opening stanza.
A Skye Rogers basket underneath from Dominique Michaud rounded out the first quarter scoring with the visitors leading, 9-4. St. Dom’s forced eight Hyde turnovers, with Rileigh Stebbins grabbing a pair of steals.
Using man-to-man defense, the Saints defense continued to swarm the Hyde ball handlers, forcing five more turnovers in the second quarter.
“We have a lot of defenses we try, we are very versatile with them,” St. Dom’s Caroline Gastonguay said. “We haven’t played man in awhile so we did that today. I think we did a really good job.”
The turnovers created more offense for St. Dom’s. Using the approach of feeding it underneath to either Rogers or Mia Leslie, the Saints were able to six points in the paint in the quarter, while registering 11 first half assists.
“We have made it a point of emphasis to get it inside to either of those two,” St. Dom’s coach Chris Marston said. “When the ball goes into those two, either one of them get a good shot or somebody else can get a good shot, and the girls are really starting to figure that out.”
Once that happened, the shooters became open, firing 3-point shots. Gastonguay sank a pair, while Zimmerman and Hannah Kenney each converted treys as the Saints were 4-for-4 from behind the arc in the second quarter.
“During practice we always do two or three man shooting, passing the ball back and forth a minute straight on both ends so we get a lot of reps,” Gastonguay said. “We have a bunch of shooters on our team.”
“We can shoot the ball pretty consistently, but it’s a matter when is the right time to shoot it,” Marston added.
Holford hauled in five more boards including a putback and pair of Kyra Holdkaupf free throws to go with a Dunn trey was all the Wolfpack managed, trailing 29-11 at the break.
St. Dom’s continued its dominance in the second half, again using the presence of Leslie and Rogers underneath, each finding one another for easy baskets.
“The post players usually break up into separate groups and we practice that a lot,” Leslie said.
The Hyde defense struggled between guarding underneath, or the shooters on the perimeter.
“A friend of mine who I coach against said to me the other night before a game, ‘that it’s hard with you guys because you never know where your points are coming from on any given night,’ and that’s an advantage for us,” Marston said. “It’s an advantage because they have to wait and feel us out. If you know who a team’s scorer is you can take them out, if not, it may be too late once you’ve figured it out.”
The Saints outscored the Wolfpack, 23-10 in the second half for the win. Despite the large margin of victory, St. Dom’s was not about to take anything for granted.
“We don’t want to take any games for granted and win every game that we can,” Leslie said. “We can’t afford to lose any more games as we have a goal to host a home prelim game.”
“We’re in a position with our schedule that we have some wins available and get some points,” Marston said. “I think we can still host a home prelim game.”
Gastonguay registered a game-high 16 points, including four treys to go with her five steals. Zimmerman and Kenney split 20 points down the middle. Leslie finished with four points, five assists, two rebounds and three steals.
Dunn finished with 11 points and six rebounds while teammate Holford netted eight points grabbing a dozen boards in the loss.
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