LEWISTON — A powerful third quarter by Edward Little senior John Shea started to wear down Lewiston and propelled the Red Eddies to a 69-59 boys basketball victory on Saturday.
Shea scored 10 points in the first half, but flipped a switch in third and went to work in the post for the Red Eddies (3-0).
The senior scored 14 points in the third, including a couple of second-chance points off of offensive rebounds. No matter who Lewiston (1-2) threw at Shea, he found a way to score.
“They’re always going to play you tough. I mean, it’s Lewiston,” Shea said. “It’s what they’re known for, some pressure, so we tried to slow it down a bit. For me, inside, it was about getting those reversals and opening my guards, and then my guards get easier looks for me.”
Shea attracted a lot of attention on defense, and in the first half the Blue Devils “held” him to 10 points, but they started to wear down.
“He’s averaging 30-something points, so the biggest plan was to front the post and have someone come over,” Lewiston coach Elgin Physic said. “The biggest thing, though, was I think we held him to 10 or 12 points in the first half, but in the second half he had so many put-backs on rebounds and I think our big guys ran out of gas.”
Because Shea attracted so much of the Blue Devils’ defensive attention in the post, Shea was able to kick the ball back out to open players at the 3-point line. In the third, Marshal Adams and Eli St. Laurent hit a 3-pointers on of possessions that Shea touched the ball.
The Red Eddies turned a 26-26 halftime score into a 50-45 advantage after three quarters.
“Shea had a great game, Marshal shot the ball, Pat (Anthoine) had a good game,” St. Laurent said. “It clicked in the second half. John’s a force. Everybody kind of collapses, and as you can see, I had open shots, Pat had open shots.”
In the fourth, Shea poured in 12 more points as Edward Little outscored Lewiston 19-14.
Shea finished with 36 points, as well as 13 rebounds. That output, Mike Adams said, came through the entire team being involved.
“It’s all based on making each other better,” Adams said. “I think it’s kind of fun because we make each other better, we look for each other, and I think tonight was the first time where we had guys coming off the floor and were happy for guys coming in even to fill their spots. They just understand it’s bigger than them, it’s us, and it was fun to watch them buy into that tonight.”
In the first half, Lewiston’s David Omasombo, Malik Foster and Yusuf Dakane wreaked havoc on the Eddies’ defense.
Dakane scored eight points in the opening half and Omasombo added seven. Foster scored six points in the second quarter.
“What we try to do is get up and down the floor and spread it wide,” Physic said. “Obviously, we want David to be more aggressive, as well as Yusuf and Malik Foster. You want those guys to be aggressive and you just take what the defense gives you. We got a little fatigued, so we weren’t cutting as hard as we could because we are spending so much effort on defense, especially in the quarter-court. That affects our offense a bit because we aren’t getting that spacing we needed.”
The Red Eddies were able to limit the Lewiston trio to nine points in the second half.
“We can’t stop them physically because they’re just too quick,” Adams said. “We tried to get in driving lanes with our help-side defense and just help each other. Malik is a really good shooter so we tried to mark up on him better and deny him the basketball. Not really face guard him, but limit his shots and drives to the basket.
“I thought all our guards did a really good job. Yusuf is one of the best penetrators in the state, and we limited him because we played as a team.”
Omasombo paced Lewiston with 13.
Hamza Sheikh contributed 12 points for Edward Little, while Adams added 11 points.
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