AUBURN — Bangor scored from all over the court but especially imposed its will in the paint in a 48-34 girls basketball win over Edward Little on Monday.
Edward Little jumped out to a 6-2 lead with a couple of 3-pointers by Kaelynn Girouard and Hannah Chaput but then went ice cold from the field. The Rams took advantage, going on a 7-0 run with points from four different players.
Led by four points from Abby Fleming, Bangor led 12-9 after one quarter.
The Rams’ size became a big factor in the second quarter, as they pulled down rebound after rebound on both ends of the court.
Libby Fleming and Abbie Quinn combined for seven rebounds and 14 points in the second quarter to propel the Rams to a 29-17 halftime lead.
Quinn finished with 13 points, all coming in the first half.
Chaput helped Edward Little hang around with a pair of second-quarter 3-pointers. Chaput finished with a team-high 15 points.
Bangor wasn’t satisfied with how it started the first half, so its focus after halftime was on dominating the third.
“We had a really slow first half,” Libby Fleming said. “We weren’t rotating well on defense, we weren’t as pumped up as we should have been, and (Bangor coach Jay Kemble) just told us that we had to go out there and that games were won in the third quarter, and we wanted to win the game so we had to show them what Bangor is really like.”
Libby Fleming came out firing in the third and scored six quick points to push the lead to 39-21 with 4:16 left in the quarter. She then finished the quarter with a 3-pointer as part of her game-high 18 points.
“We probably had 30 points in the paint, and Libby probably had 14 in the paint in the game,” Kemble said. “We have to play to our strengths, and in this league you have to have an inside game.”
Bangor’s ability to score from anywhere on the court posed a conundrum for Edward Little, which trailed 42-24 after three quarters.
“We had to pick our poison because they’ve hit a lot of 3s to start the year, so we wanted to make sure they didn’t shoot us out of the gym,” Red Eddies coach Chris Cifelli said. “At the same time, their height presents a problem. It took us too long to figure out how we were going to defend that high-low. We got limited to one shot, and they’d get put-backs. That’s been a general theme of this year that limiting the other team’s second chances has been a challenge.”
Bangor’s size wore down the Eddies, but Kemble said the Rams were challenged.
“We’ve got some kids with good experience,” Kemble said. “We tried to wear down the other team in the first half with our physicality. This was a grind game for us, it wasn’t an easy game. But if you’re going to be a good team you need to be able to win those games.”
EL battled back in the fourth quarter by pressing on defense and having shots to fall that earlier in the game rimmed out.
Chaput scored five quick points off a couple steals, including a three-point play on a fast break.
The Eddies cut the deficit to 11 points late in the game, but it was too little too late — a theme throughout the first month of the season.
“The thing that’s been happening this season is you’ll see segments of play where we are on the same page and getting open looks,” Cifelli said. “But we will have some bad segments where our play kind of dips and that’s usually when the other team picks up their game.”
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