AUBURN — Jordyn Reynolds knew it was time to up her game.
With her Edward Little girls’ basketball battling foul trouble and struggling for offense, the junior center knew she could and needed to do her part.
“I knew I had to perform a little bit better,” Reynolds said. “When you have some other starters in foul trouble, you have to step up yourself. After the last game, I only scored four points. I knew I needed to challenge myself a little more.”
Reynolds led EL (2-0) with 12 points, 10 of which came in the second half Tuesday. The Red Eddies built an early lead and held off Oxford Hills for a 41-32 win in a matchup of two unbeaten teams in Class AA North.
“Defensively, we played as well as as we could in the first half,” EL coach Craig Jipson said. “They’ve got a lot of good offensive weapons. I respect (Erin) Morton, (Erin) Eastman and (Tianna) Sugars so much, especially Morton and Eastman, who I’ve seen play a million times playing AAU with my daughter. They’re really good offfensive players. We got on a good role defensively in the first half.”
EL built a 10-point lead in the first half and had the advantage up to 15 in the third quarter. The Vikings struggled offensively, scoring just 15 points through the first three quarters. Oxford Hills shot 5-for-29 from the floor through the first three quarters and turned the ball over over 20 times during that span.
“At one point, I was hoping we’d get to 10 and that was in the third quarter,” Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier said. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot in the first half. We just couldn’t put the ball in the basket. If you told me that we’d only give up 16 points in the first half to EL, I’d think we were in a great position.”
The Vikings made a surge at the end. A 7-0 run, capped off by an Eastman 3, got the Vikings within 32-26 with 3:03 left. EL answered that with a press breaker basket by Jade Perry and two free throws by Emily Jacques.
“I was like, ‘We just need to stay calm and stop fouling’ because they were calling everything,” Reynolds said. “We had to stay calm and keep our heads together and play our game.”
The Vikings continued to rally. A 3 by Morton cut it to 36-29 with 1:37 left. After a free throw by Karli Stubbs, Sugars scored on a rebound with 1:07 left to make it 37-31. EL finished it off with another Perry basket on a press breaker. After a free throw by Anna Piirainen, Jacques sank a pair of free throws.
“I’m just happy with the way the girls fought,” Pelletier said. “We were down a good amount of points. They found a way to fight and press and get some steals. Every basket we made was a grind. Nothing was easy for us.”
Jacques finished with 11 for EL while Stubbs finished with seven. Perry added six, while Piper Norcross chipped in five. The Vikings (1-1) were led by Morton with 10. Jayden Colby and Sugars each had five.
“We had to kind of hang on because we had a lot of kids in foul trouble,” Jipson said. “I thought Grace Beaudet and Jade Perry came up a ton down the stretch. I was very pleased with them.”
There were nearly 40 fouls called in the game and both teams had to juggle lineups because of foul trouble. EL had both Reynolds and Jacques in foul trouble early but managed to keep them in the game for the duration.
It was a 3 by Jacques and Norcross in the first quarter that helped EL open a quick 8-2 lead. Norcross and Stubbs scored field goals in the second as EL built the lead to 16-7 at half. The Vikings had just three field goals the entire first half, from Morton, Jadah Adams and Sugars.
“The first team that got the lead in this game was going to be tough to catch because shots were tough to come by,” Pelletier said.
EL got enough offense to pad the lead in the second half. The Red Eddies moved the ball well and managed get four points each from Reynolds and Stubbs in the third. It was an 8-2 run that opened a 15-point lead. Reynolds had half those points off nice feeds from Francesca-Beth Haines and Stubbs.
“We were a lot better,” Reynolds said of the ball movement in the second half. “We were a lot more comfortable. We were betting getting into the game and it was flowing a little better in the second half.”
Reynolds scored EL’s first six points in the fourth quarter, finishing off passes from Stubbs and Beaudet, to make it 21-19. The Vikings then made their run to make things interesting.
“We just have a lot of kids that don’t have varsity experience,” said Jipson, whose team plays a tough Deering squad next. “Even the kids we have back that are juniors and seniors, they didn’t play a ton last year. They’re filling different roles. I hope we keep getting better and better.”
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