Houlton girls top Ponies to stay unbeaten

DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — After struggling to fend off Foxcroft Academy’s formidable front line for more than a half Thursday afternoon, the Houlton girls basketball team turned up the intensity and surged past the Ponies 60-47.

The two-time defending state champion Shiretowners (5-0) emerged from a series of three straight lead changes early in the third quarter with 18 unanswered points to build a commanding 50-33 advantage less than two minutes into the final period.

“The biggest thing we talked about was settling down and relaxing,” said Houlton coach Shawn Graham. “We were tense, we were tight, mentally we didn’t appear to be in the game, so we talked at halftime about having a third quarter because maybe the team that had that run could close it out, and that run set us up for the fourth quarter.”

Kolleen Bouchard paced Houlton with game-high totals of 22 points, 13 rebounds and five assists to go with three blocked shots.

The Bangor Daily News All-Maine junior guard scored 10 of her points in the fourth quarter with a left-wing jumper, a 3-pointer and a feed to reserve sparkplug Kristen Brewer for a layup at the outset of the period helping the Shiretowners cap off their decisive run and build their largest lead.

“Coach really got on us at halftime because we weren’t playing our game, rebounding and running,” said Bouchard. “We were letting them get a lot of rebounds knowing that they were big, so we made an adjustment and got aggressive in our zone and that started things for us.

“We got our fast break going and started doing different offenses and getting a lot of girls involved,” she said.

Senior guard Rylee Warman added 12 points for Houlton, and junior forward Aspen Flewelling had 10 points and six rebounds.

Foxcroft (5-3) was paced by its college-sized front line of 6-foot-1 center Abigail Simpson and 5-10 forwards Grace Bickford and Makenzie Beaudry, who combined for 38 points and 22 rebounds.

Bickford finished with 16 points and six rebounds, Beaudry had 14 points and nine rebounds while guarding Bouchard, and Simpson added eight points and seven rebounds.

That trio scored 27 points as the Ponies battled Houlton to a 29-29 halftime stalemate but had increasing difficulty getting the ball in scoring position after the break as Houlton grew more aggressive defensively.

“At halftime the score in the paint was 23-8 them, and we talked about the 2-3 zone and why they got 23 points in the paint against a packed-in zone,” said Graham. “We took a look at what they were running for offense and tried to jam their cutters a little bit and made sure we did a better job of boxing out.”

Two free throws by Abbi Bourget early in the third quarter gave Foxcroft a 31-29 lead, its first advantage since 2-0.

Warman countered with a 3-pointer and Bourget scored from the lane as the teams swapped the lead to a 33-32 Foxcroft edge, but the Ponies then went scoreless for the next 6½ minutes as Houlton took charge.

“I think we got a little too conservative offensively,” said Foxcroft coach Blake Smith. “I thought they did a good job of getting Bouchard open off some screens and making things happen that way, but I think the biggest thing was we didn’t look to get the ball inside enough.”