Cheverus beats TA in battle of undefeated

PORTLAND — Even champions eat humble pie every now and then.

The New England Patriots missed the playoffs in 2002 after winning their first Super Bowl in 2001. The Boston Red Sox were knocked out early in the 2005 playoffs after ending an 86-year old curse in 2004.

For the Thornton Academy boys basketball team, that pie was served on Tuesday night, as Cheverus beat the Golden Trojans, 80-46.

The game pitted two undefeated teams in Western Maine Class A, as both teams entered the game with 6-0 records and the two top spots in the Maine Principal Association heal point standings.

Cheverus showcased an air-tight defense throughout the game, using its lanky frames to smack away many of the Golden Trojan passes and block shots down in the low post.

Among those lanky frames was 6-5 forward Alex Furness, who hails from Wells. Furness, a junior playing his first year of varsity ball, finished the game with 10 points, one of four Stags players who finished with double-digit scoring.

Furness said Cheverus uses its height advantage (The average height of a Cheverus player is 6-3) as well as hustle to be successful.

“We’re really long this year, we have some tall, lanky kids,” Furness said. “We get in passing lanes pretty good. Everybody’s been coming to play every game, so we’ve been tough to beat because everybody plays hard and we’re real deep.”

On offense, the Stags used a fast break offense with many long cross-court passes, which Furness said was part of the Stags strategy for the Trojans.

“We especially wanted to get it done today, because the way Thornton plays defense, they play help side, so we wanted to get the ball over and make their defense kind of scramble. I thought we did a good job, it got us open shots.”

Furness, who transferred to Cheverus from Wells a year ago, said the move has been a smooth transition.

“It’s been real good,” Furness said. “Everyone’s been pretty welcoming. Everybody’s friendly and I made friends real quick.”

Furness still maintains a strong contingent of friends from his hometown however, enough to take the 40-minute ride from Wells to Portland to dress up in red and take up a large portion of the corner section of the stands in the Cheverus gymnasium.

“They come up to all of my games and they were here tonight,” Furness said. “I love seeing them up here. I keep in touch with them all the time, I still talk with them, they’re still my friends.”

Thornton Academy forward Andrew Shaw led the Trojans in scoring with nine points, while Corbett Smith, Tom Littlefield and James Ek each scored eight points.

Littlefield, one of Thornton’s tri-captains, said the team had a problem with strategy.

“We really weren’t on the same page as a team,” Littlefield said. “We kind of panicked, because we only had one practice and we weren’t sure what was going on and people thought they were doing different things than what we were really doing. We just really didn’t come out hard from the get-go. We were kind of running around lackadaisical. We just need to work hard and get back to where we were.”

The schedule will not be kind to the Trojans for the next week. On Thursday the team will play against 4-3 Scarborough, but then travel to 8-0 South Portland on Saturday before hosting 6-1 Westbrook on Jan. 9.

Littlefield said the tough schedule helps to get over the Cheverus game

“Yeah, it’s already behind us, it’s over. We’re going to the next game.”