AUBURN — Lewiston seniors Myah and Jamyah Nicolas try to bring family ties to the basketball court.
The twins have an innate sense of how to read each other’s moves on the court, and they applied their life-long, innate communication skills in an opening game against cross-town rival Edward Little on Thursday night, combining for 29 points in the Blue Devils’ 52-34 victory over the Red Eddies.
“We just bond and we know what we are going to do before we do it,” she said. “I think EL came out strong, but in the end, we dominated. We pulled together as a team.”
Myah enjoys playing side-by-side with her sister.
“I know what she’s going to do before she even does it because we have been playing together since the fifth grade,” she said. “I think we started out strong and kind of a little weak in the middle and pulled it back together once coach (sat) us down and talked to us. I felt like we did real good in the fourth quarter.”
Craig Jipson, who experienced great success coaching the Edward Little girls for 12 seasons before stepping down in 2017, on Thursday stood as the opposing coach for Lewiston.
“I’ve had the greatest 15 years here between the girls and the boys, but I got this great opportunity at Lewiston, and these girls are such great kids,” Jipson said. “They are warriors. They practice so hard. They have bought into what we are doing.
“I thought (EL coach) Chris Cifelli’s kids were really composed tonight. They shot the ball better than we did. But I do like the fight that we showed down the stretch. We want to try and play at that pace, but I thought EL kept up with our pace really well.”
The Devils maintained a steady lead the entire game, though there were several moments that the Eddies started closing in on Lewiston. But each time EL made its moves, the Blue Devils pulled away.
Lewiston opened the fourth quarter with a 31-24 lead and eventually made it 36-24 after Lauren Foster went under and came up with two of her eight points. Jamyah Nicolas (14 points) followed with a 3-pointer. Then EL reeled off six points with 3-pointers by Jenny Chaput (team-leading eight points) and Erin Cowie with six minutes left to play.
That’s when Devils opened up with 16 points over the final five minutes of the game. Myah Nicolas (game-leading 15 points) sparked Lewiston’s onslaught with a 3-pointer. The Devils went on to build an 41-30 lead with 5:37 left to play.
“I think we all sat down and just realized that we were kind of giving up, and that we brought each other back together and we dominated,” Jamyah Nicolas said.
In the first quarter, Lewiston held Edward Little to just four points and went on to construct a sturdy 23-11 lead at halftime.
“The first time, it is always going to be hard, especially when you don’t have (a) preseason,” Cifelli said. “We have a lot of young kids playing in some big spots right now. We saw some really nice things on both sides of the ball.
“The story is we got out here … It was just great that we got a game in. It feels like a victory. We got four quarters in.”
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