Madison Phelps, left, and Abby Ferland of Monmouth Academy battle for a loose ball during the second half in Monmouth on Friday. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)
MONMOUTH — Secondary scoring will be important for Monmouth as the season goes on. But for Mt. Abram, it was a necessity Friday night.
But Summer Ross was Mt. Abram’s only scorer in the first quarter while five different Mustangs found the bottom of the net to race out to a big lead. Monmouth never let the Roadrunners catch up and eventually ran away with a 66-40 MVC girls’ basketball victory.
Trailing 19-4 after one quarter, Mt. Abram (1-4) coach Larry Donald told his team to “start moving.”
“Sometimes, you know, Summer will take over the game too much at times, but tonight wasn’t the case. Other people weren’t doing their part to help her,” Donald said. “You know, she was saying there, she said, ‘Everybody’s got to get where they’re supposed to be so I know where they are.’ And once we start doing a little of that it worked, to some extent.”
Ross, who scored a team-high 11 points, got some help from Ashlyn Sorel and Madison Phelps in the second quarter, but the Roadrunners still trailed 33-19 at half.
Monmouth (3-3) had no trouble spreading the scoring around. Four of the five starters and the first reserve off the bench, Katie Harris, all hit shots in the first quarter, and seven different players scored in the first half. All 10 players in uniform saw the court and scored in the game.
“That’s what I’m trying to do with the program right now, is getting some of the role players and some of the nine, 10, 11, 12 players, get them some minutes,” Monmouth coach Rick Larrabee said. “I want everybody to get experience. … So any game that everybody can get plenty of time, I want to give it to them so they get that experience, so when big games come around they have that big-game experience.”
Harris came off the bench and scored six points in the first quarter to help build the Mustangs’ big lead, and she finished with a game-highs of 13 points and five field goals.
“In warm-ups, it was kind of like, I just felt like I was shooting well tonight. I knew things were going to drop,” Harris said. “There was a lot open in the middle. The 2-3 (zone) was really spread out, so we got a lot of shots open in the middle, and that just helped me get — I got a lot of good passes from my teammates, you know?”
On the defensive end, the Mustangs’ full-court press was hard for the Roadrunners to handle in the first quarter. It subsided some in the second quarter when Monmouth’s second unit got some extended minutes.
“Although tonight we won by (26), there were moments where Mt. Abram was going on little runs, and I had my second group in, and they had to step up and battle, and play tough man-to-man, and they did that,” Larrabee said.
The Mustangs went away from the press in the third quarter when the Roadrunners started to cut through it, but a half-court man-to-man defense did its job. So, too, did Monmouth’s starting lineup on offense, which played all eight minutes and pushed the lead to 51-31.
“We came out good in the third quarter. (Coach Larrabee) was just saying he pulled the press because we were starting to get up through it easier than he thought we would,” Donald said. “But a few breaks here and there, a foul here and there, might get a shot. We couldn’t shoot. Couldn’t hit the ocean.”
For Monmouth, Julia Johnson scored six of her 11 points, and Kaeti Butterfield six of her 10 in the third before both sat the whole fourth quarter.
Harris scored the last five of her total in the fourth before fouling out.
In addition to the 11 points for Ross, who fouled out early in the fourth, Phelps added nine and Kaylee Knight and Emily Marden seven apiece.
wkramlich@sunjournal.com
Kaeti Butterfield of Monmouth Academy looks to pass to her teammate while being pressured by Ashlyn Sorel of Mt. Abram during the second half in Monmouth on Friday. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)
Abby Flanagan, left, and Kayla Brooks, right, of Monmouth Academy pressure Madison Phelps of Mt. Abram during the first half in Monmouth on Friday. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)
Amaya Bauer of Monmouth Academy sends up a first half shot against Mt. Abram defenders Ashlyn Sorel, left, Madison Phelps, Emily Marden and Kaylee Knight. (Daryn Slover/Sun Journal)
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