GUILFORD, Maine — The Central Red Devils were eager to reboot their girls basketball season after a sluggish pre-Christmas start.
Coach Diane Rollins’ club got that second chance off to a promising start Monday night with a 44-32 victory over Piscataquis.
“This was one of our better games,” said sophomore guard Sydney Allen, who paced Central with 15 points and six assists. “We’re trying to change things up a bit and get a new start on the season. We’d been a little down but now we’re picking things back up and feeling better. In practice we’re just working harder as a team and trying new things. That’s what it takes.”
The win figures to be pointworthy for the 3-3 Red Devils, which this season have moved from Class C to Class B North under the state’s new five-class format.
Piscataquis is expected to be one of the top contenders in Class C North, and suffered just its second loss in six games.
“We had too many turnovers, and defensively they locked us up,” said Pirates coach Brian Gaw. “We struggled. We kept trying to do the same one play and it wasn’t working so we tried it harder.”
A Central squad with just one senior induced 28 Piscataquis turnovers while limiting the Pirates to 27 field-goal attempts.
“I really felt like they dug down and worked really hard on defense,” said Rollins. “We got a few more stops than we had been getting and we transitioned better. We still had some turnovers and that’s something we’re still working on because we’re young, but I felt we knew what we were doing more with our offense than we had in the past.”
Another sophomore, Emily Smith, added 10 points for Central and played a key defensive role against Piscataquis standout Delani Bennett, a 6-foot-3 senior center.
Bennett had 10 points, six rebounds and four blocked shots but was held to six shot attempts by Central’s double-teaming ways and also was limited in her movement after missing most of the third quarter due to an ankle injury.
“We didn’t want Delani to be able to catch the ball because when she catches the ball you see what she can do,” said Rollins. “My sophomore, Emily Smith, put a body on her and tried to front her and then I had another girl in the back coming over and helping.
“That was another part of our start-over tonight, listening better and understanding what we needed to do to achieve the goal.”
Central trailed just briefly at 4-1 on two Bennett free throws and a Haylee Patterson layup off a Bennett assist midway through the first quarter.
Central soon began shooting successfully over the Pirates’ 1-2-2 zone and scored nine straight points to take a 9-5 lead, but that advantage was just 20-18 at intermission before the Red Devils capitalized on Bennett’s absence from the middle to outscore the Pirates 14-5 during the third quarter.
A baseline jumper by Smith and a layup by junior forward Libby Cook opened the second-half scoring for Central, and Allen’s penetrating moves into the lane created a short jumper for herself and a kickout pass to Kaitlyn Pinkham for a jumper that gave the Red Devils a 34-23 lead at the end of the period.
Libby finished with nine points and seven rebounds for Central while Emma Campbell had four steals.
Freshman Alivia Hunt came off the bench to contribute six points for Piscataquis while another reserve, sophomore Lexi Harris, grabbed a team-high seven rebounds.
