Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

January 6

BOYS BASKETBALL: Black Raiders grind out win

By Travis Lazarczyk tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

GARDINER -- Playing against a bigger and strong Gardiner Area High School basketball team, the Winslow boys expected Saturday's game at John A. Bragoli Gym to come down to the details.

"We had to prepare to get roughed around, because they're much bigger than us, and stronger," Winslow guard Nason Lanphier said. "We just had to get on all the loose balls, get all the hustle plays because they outmuscle us on everything. We had to box out, do all the little things."

The Black Raiders scored the first 12 points of the game, and went on to grind out a 58-48 win. Winslow is 6-2, while Gardiner is 3-4.

"We did get off to a nice start, but we knew Gardiner's a good team. They're not just going to pack it in. They scrapped back. The game went how I thought it would, we just got off to a quicker start than they did," Winslow coach Jared Browne said.

The Tigers had six turnovers before scoring a point, and Gardiner coach Jason Cassidy used three timeouts in the game's first six minutes to get his team on track. When the Tigers worked to get the ball in the paint, they were able to generate some offense. But too often, shots didn't fall. For the game, Gardiner shot just 25.4 percent (17 for 67) from the field.

"We've got to figure out a way to take better shots," Cassidy said. "Shot selection's hurting us. We feel like we forced shots. Take (Jensen) Orewiler's 3s out of the picture, and we're 1 for 19 (from 3-point range). We've got to get some things happening at the rim for us."

The Tigers did a nice job defending Winslow big man Austin Ireland, holding him to four points. The Black Raider backcourt picked up the scoring, however. Lanphier (18 points) and Trevor Lovely (15 points) did a nice job slashing to the basket and each was strong from outside. Lovely made three 3-pointers, while Lanphier hit a pair of 3s. Inside, Justin Martin scored 13 points.

"After the turnovers and the quick jump shots, we tried to attack the rim better. They had that nice run where they got two or three 3s in transition," Cassidy said. "Again, it's us missing quality shots. We were getting to the rim, we were just missing quality shots."

Ahead 43-31 going into the fourth quarter, Winslow focused its defensive attention on Tyler Jamison. The senior scored a team-high 15 points, but none in the fourth quarter.

"We picked it up in the fourth quarter on Jamison. We played him more physically. We locked him down in the fourth quarter. For their best player to have a scoreless fourth quarter with them down, that's huge for us," Browne said.

Added Lanphier: "Connor Wildes really did a good job on (Jamison). We picked it up on defense in the fourth quarter."

Gardiner never led, but cut the Black Raiders' lead to five points, 50-45, on an Orewiler (13 points) 3-pointer with 2:18 to play. Winslow made five foul shots down the stretch to seal the win.

Ireland and Martin each had 11 rebounds for Winslow, while Wildes had three steals. Jamison had 10 boards for the Tigers.

Travis Lazarczyk -- 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

 

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