FREEPORT — Freeport took over in the second half and rolled to a 58-45 victory against Lake Region to record a signature win in a Western Maine Conference girls’ basketball game Thursday night.
After falling behind 20-10 in the first quarter, the Falcons outscored the Lakers by at least seven points in each of the next three. Freeport moved to 7-2 with its third consecutive victory.
“This is a big win for us,” said Freeport Coach Mike Hart, in his third season. “This team has done a lot of good things since I’ve started, but we haven’t really beat an elite program like Lake Region.
“To be able to do that is huge, a good step for us.”
Early on, it looked like Lake Region (5-4) was going to roll to another win over the Falcons.
Kristen Huntress, who scored all 11 of her points in the first quarter, scored six in the final 45 seconds of the quarter to propel the Lakers to their early 10-point lead.
“I was so proud of (my players) for not letting that (run) be the theme for the game,” Hart said.
Instead, the Falcons ran off the first 11 points of the second quarter to take a 21-20 lead with more than four minutes left in the half.
The lead seesawed until Freeport uncorked an 11-4 run to open a 38-32 lead with less than a minute left in the third quarter.
The Falcons played a solid half-court game at both ends.
“We wanted to keep pressure on the ball, but we chose to do it in the half court,” Hart said. “We were running some double teams trying to force them to play a little fast.”
“(Freeport) played tremendous pressure defense and took us out of everything we wanted to do,” Lake Region Coach Paul True said.
“Defensively, they just took us out of our flow.”
Freeport limited the Lakers to just three successful 3-point shots.
“Even when you’re on them, they can get a good shot,” Hart said. “We switched some of our defensive screens so we could defense the 3-point arc.”
During several sequences in the second half, all five Freeport players touched the ball before the Falcons finished the possession with a basket.
“That’s what you want to happen,” Hart said. “It expands the zone (defense) and creates gaps that we want to exploit.”
Freeport’s Taylor Rinaldi led all scorers with 14 points.
Megan Cormier, a junior who subbed in at forward, followed with 12 points. Regan Lynch added 10.
Lauren Jakobs scored 11 points for the Lakers. Chandler True had 10.
Play was ragged at the outset when both teams applied full-court defensive pressure. Lake Region went into the bonus when the Falcons committed their seventh team foul with more than a minute left in the first quarter, but the Lakers weren’t able to take advantage if that situation.
“(Freeport) continued to play very physical,” True said. “We didn’t get to the free-throw line and we began to play very tentative.”
“That was a credit to Freeport,” True added. “They played physical. They were the aggressor.
“They came after us, and we didn’t respond very well.”
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