PORTLAND – There are games when Allie Clement can tell what type of contest her team is in for right off the bat.

She doesn’t profess to be psychic or anything — the signs are much too obvious.

She can simply read the fearful look in her opponent’s eyes, the tentative nature of their passing and the general havoc that McAuley’s defensive pressure is wreaking as the opposition attempts to bring the ball up the floor.

Friday night was one of those games, as the Lions rolled over Bonny Eagle 61-26 in a Southern Maine Activities Association basketball game.

The win moved the Lions to 5-0. The Scots dropped to 2-3.

“Sometimes you can kind of tell when we put our press on at the beginning of the game,” said Clement, who scored a game-high 17 points. “You can tell if they can handle it or not. A lot of teams can’t because it’s fast-paced and up in your face.

“I’m not sure I could handle it if I was on the other side.”

McAuley pressed Bonny Eagle into submission in the opening quarter. The home side burst out of the gate and scored the first 13 points.

Shannon Sanborn managed to drain a couple free throws at the end of the quarter for the Scots, but the damage was done, with McAuley leading 13-2 after eight minutes.

“I’m surprised that our team didn’t handle the early pressure because that was our focus,” said Bonny Eagle Coach Suzanne Rondeau. “We just went into panic mode.

“We didn’t play calm and we just kind of let them take it right away.”

The Lions stretched their lead to 24-4 by the midway point of the second quarter. Alexa Coulombe started the quarter with back-to-back buckets as McAuley used an 11-2 run to pad its lead. Coulombe, a 6-foot-2 senior forward who was credited with five blocked shots, scored 12 of her 16 points in the quarter as the Lions carried a 31-14 advantage into the halftime break.

“I think (our press) just keeps getting better each game we do it,” said Coulombe.

“Basically, we want to go and get it first. We don’t want to look at the score, we want to go out and play our game and let what happens happen.”

Clement ensured that Bonny Eagle wasn’t going to mount a miraculous second-half comeback. She scored eight points as part of a 14-0 run to open the third quarter.

Olivia Smith added 15 points for the Lions.

Freshman point guard Olivia Dalphonse paced Bonny Eagle with seven points, while Sanborn collected six.