By Wayne E. Rivet
Staff Writer

CUMBERLAND — Paul True preaches over and over to his players, “Let’s play hard for 32 minutes,” and “Defense wins games.”

On a night when the offense was sketchy, Lake Region pulled out a major road win over Greely by forcing 27 turnovers, including a key steal by guard Rachel Wandishin, to produce a 33-30 victory last Friday night in Cumberland.

Down 30-27, Wandishin stole the ball from a Greely player near mid-court and converted the turnover into two points. Again, the Lakers tightened up coverage and forced a Greely traveling call. With 29.8 seconds left, Sydney Hancock drove to the hoop, was fouled and coolly sank two foul shots to put the Lakers up 31-30. After a Greely miss, freshman center Tianna-Jo Carter controlled the rebound, found Hancock who ran off 10 seconds before being fouled. With a chance to seal the victory, Hancock made both foul shots.

The victory cemented the Lakers’ claim to the third-seed in the upcoming playoffs, while the Rangers finished in fifth.

“It wasn’t pretty, but the girls kept their composure and made big plays down the stretch to win the game,” Lake Region Coach Paul True said. “After the game, I told the girls that on a night when our offense was too stagnant, we were able to pull out the victory because we play hard for 32 minutes.”

Lake Region was “lucky” to be down just 13-10 at the half.

“The way we played, we could have been down 30-10,” Coach True said. “But, because of our defense, we were still in the game.”

Sophomore Kelsey Winslow also kept the Lakers in the contest, scoring a game-high 12 points. The Lakers (16-2) built an 8-point lead in the third quarter, but saw the Rangers (14-4) rally with eight points of their own to tie the game, setting up a thrilling finish.

Other LR scorers: Hancock 6, Hannah Cutting 4, Allison Clark 4, Abby Craffey 3, Carter 2 and Wandishin 2. Caroline Hamilton led Greely with 10 points.

Ending on a down note

Greely 65, Lake Region 29: With senior guard Kevin Gilson out due to a head injury suffered in the Fryeburg Academy game, the Lakers scored half of their points in the first quarter and trailed by just two.

Greely went on a 35-11 surge in the middle quarters to beat the Lakers at Nutting Gym last Thursday night. The Lakers closed out the season 5-13, ranked 14th in Class B West.

Scorers were: Danny Place 8, Mike Triglione 8, Alex Hartford 7 and Mike Mageles 6.

3-Pointers: Place 2 and Mageles 2.

York 75, Fryeburg Academy 50: The Wildcats won each quarter, and held the Raiders to just 5 points in the final frame for a home victory. Fryeburg finished 3-15 and ranked 15th in Class B West.

FA scorers were: Mike Costa 12, Florian Forsting 10, Colby Locke 10, Tyler Saunders 6, Kevin Knowles 4, Zack Rowland 3, Bright Amoako 3 and Walker Mallory 2.

York 56, Fryeburg Academy 21: The Raiders enjoyed a brief 5-2 advantage, leading York Coach Rick Clark to tell his team to wake up. The sleeping Cats did. York went on to build a 20-9 lead and held the Raiders to just 4 points in the second half.

Fryeburg finished the season 5-13.

FA scorers were: Skye Dole 7, Katie Heggie 6, Bailey Frost 2, Kendra Fox 2, Maggie McConkey 2 and Maddy Smith 2.