OAKLAND, Maine — By all appearances the lines of separation are quite fine near the top of the Eastern Maine Class A boys basketball standings with a week left in the regular season.
But on most nights what still makes the difference between success and a missed opportunity are the same fundamentals that have been doing that job for generations — defense and free throws.
The Hampden Academy Broncos used those tools to bounce back from Monday’s loss at Edward Little of Auburn on Wednesday night, clamping down on defense and making 10 consecutive free throws over the final 70 seconds of play to outlast the Messalonskee Eagles 57-47.
The win improves second-seeded Hampden to 13-2, while third-ranked Messalonskee is 11-5 after having its eight-game winning streak ended.
“[Hampden] just executed in the biggest moments and we came up just a little short,” said Messalonskee coach Pete McLaughlin, whose team had fallen to the Broncos in overtime at Hampden last month. “But all in all I’m proud of my guys. That’s a great team, one of the top teams in our conference, and I think we’ve established ourselves as one as well.”
Junior guard Nick Gilpin paced Hampden with 20 points — including 12 in the fourth quarter — to go with 12 rebounds and seven assists. Junior forward Brendan McIntyre added 15 points while junior forward Conary Moore had eight points and eight rebounds.
The Broncos also got a big defensive effort from junior guard Jake Black, who had four blocked shots and four steals in support of Moore’s work against 6-foot-8-inch Messalonskee star Nick Mayo.
Mayo had a relatively quiet offensive night — save for two thunderous dunks, one with each hand. The Eastern Kentucky commit scored 14 points on 6 of 15 shooting to go with seven rebounds, three assists and two blocks as the Hampden defense quickly collapsed on him whenever he got the ball near the basket.
“We knew going into the game that Nick Mayo was going to be a big challenge for us so I knew I was going to have to be on help side all night helping out on him,” Black said. “My offense wasn’t working out tonight, so I thought I could help out on the defensive end with some blocks and some steals, any way I could.”
Hampden held a slight lead for the most of the night, and built an advantage as large as 39-30 after back-to-back 3-pointers by Black and McIntyre midway through the third quarter.
But Messalonskee battled back behind Mayo, who worked inside for six points in the third period and four more points early in the fourth quarter.
And when backcourt mates Noah Caret and Sawyer Michaud split the Hampden defense for back-to-back driving layups, the Eagles held a 44-43 edge with 3:17 left in the game.
From there a Hampden defense that had yielded 69 points in its 15-point loss at Edward Little two nights earlier tightened up, enabling the Broncos to outscore Messalonskee 14-3 the rest of the way.
“It started on the defensive end for us,” Gilpin said. “Whenever a team has a player as good as Nick Mayo we have to key on him, and then we wanted to put some pressure on their guards and force some turnovers and we did that.”
Gilpin hit a short pull-up jumper to give Hampden back the lead at 45-44 with 2:36 left, and after missing his first free-throw try of the final quarter he connected on his next eight attempts as the Broncos ever-so-gradually pulled away.
Messalonskee did draw within 49-47 on a 3-pointer by Nathan Violette with 41 seconds remaining, but four Gilpin free throws — the second pair after a Black steal — and then two more free throws by Black put the game away.
“We were up one with just over three minutes to go, we had just hit a big shot, and I think it came down to executing on possessions,” McLaughlin said. “We had a chance to get it to three but we had a turnover and they came down and ran their flex and put us in a position where we had to foul and they made their foul shots.”
