LEWISTON — Lewiston coach Craig Jipson had some high praise for sophomore Ellie Legare’s defensive performance against Scarborough on Saturday afternoon.
Legare had a block, converted all four of her free throws and locked down the Red Storm in the fourth quarter to help the Blue Devils secure a 47-39 victory in Class AA girls basketball at Fern Masse Court.
“The (Lindsay) Fiorillo kid is one of the best players in our league and so we went box-and-one, and I thought Ellie Legare had one of the best defensive performances I’ve seen,” Jipson said. “Her performance was outstanding.”
Lewiston entered the fourth quarter with a 34-30 lead. With six minutes to play in the game, Aiwen Maiwen scored a layup on an under-the-basket, out-of-bounds play to put the Blue Devils up 36-30. Then, a few seconds later, Natalie Beaudoin stole the ball under the hoop and went coast-to-coast, finishing at the rim and earning a foul. Beaudoin missed the free throw but Lewiston had a 38-30 lead with 5:44 left in the game.
A minute later, Legare made two free throws and Lewiston suddenly had its largest lead of the game, 40-30, with 4:30 to play.
“We’re not a team that can score in the 60s, so it was good we kept them to 30 after the third,” Jipson said. “We folded against Windham and Cheverus late, we had a lead late against Cheverus, but we didn’t fold today. We hit some free throws down the stretch and I thought the kids were just exceptional.”
Scarborough went on a quick 7-0 run to make it 40-37 with 2:23 left in the game, but Maiwen made another layup to stop the bleeding.
Legare connected on two more free throws, then Beaudoin made three at the end of the game to finish with 16 points.
“Koral Morin controlled the ball well at the end of the game, Natalie hit a couple big free throws,” Jipson said. “On the defensive end, I just thought we had a lot of kids come up with steals and we had some girls off the bench give an exceptional effort.”
In the first quarter, Morin got Lewiston going with a couple of 3-pointers at the end of the period. However, Scarborough started out well and four of its five starters scored to give the Red Storm a 12-9 lead after the first.
Morin kept shooting and hit her next two 3-pointers to give Lewiston a 23-19 lead right before the half.
“It felt good,” Morin said of her hot start. “I’ve been putting in some work after practices to try to perfect (my shot) and it felt good.”
Morin finished the game with 16 points to equal Beaudoin for the team-high output.
Beaudoin got another steal at half court and went and scored at the basket with 0.8 seconds left in the first half to give the Blue Devils a 25-19 halftime lead.
Beaudoin scored six points in the second quarter alone, with two jumpers coming from just-inside the 3-point line.
“Second quarter through the second half we had heavy legs,” Scarborough coach Mike Giordano said. “There’s no excuses, I thought Lewiston played phenomenal and their three shooters are as good as I’ve seen. We didn’t do a good job of closing out on them and they got in a rhythm, and I thought from the second quarter they kind of controlled the game, so compliments to them.”
In the third, Scarborough’s Elisabeth LeFebvre scored five of her team-high 11 points to keep the Red Storm close. Caroline Hartley finished with nine for Scarborough.
Fiorillo was the focal point for Lewiston’s defense, and the Blue Devils held the senior to just three points for the game.
“I think we had a great team effort,” Morin said. “I thought we played hard together. The focus in the locker room before the game was to bring it on defense and play as a team. It was definitely a big win for us. It will help us move forward with confidence and continue working hard on defense.”
“We didn’t cave in,” Jipson said. “They’re coming off a big week, beating two undefeated teams (Gorham and Cheverus), and they’ll win a lot of games, but this is a big win for us.”
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