PORTLAND – Practice, coaches always say, makes perfect. But what happens when you don’t practice?

We found out Monday afternoon.

Because of a scheduled day off, a snow day, illness and time to study for midterms, the Scarborough High girls’ basketball team had gone a week without practicing. And it showed very early Monday afternoon against Deering.

But Scarborough rallied in the second half and blew past Deering for a 53-47 win. The Red Storm were 14 for 16 at the foul line in the final eight minutes, led by freshman Ashley Briggs, who hit 7 of 8 foul shots en route to a game-high 23 points.

The victory improved top-ranked Scarborough to 11-0 and set up Friday night’s showdown with defending Class A state champion McAuley, which is 10-0 and ranked second in Western Class A.

“That will be fun, won’t it?” asked Scarborough Coach Tom Maines.

It was anything but fun for the Red Storm early in Monday’s game. Deering (8-4) led 20-10 late in the second quarter and 21-15 at halftime.

“We hadn’t practiced (since) a week ago today,” said Maines. “And I think we forgot a few things we were supposed to do.”

Especially defensively, where the Red Storm played soft, didn’t cover the passing lanes and didn’t rotate properly. Once the second half began, however, they corrected those problems and Deering’s offense faltered.

“We came out kind of soft on defense and defense is our game-changer,” said Briggs. “It takes all of us. We all knew we had to (play better defense), it was just a matter of when we were going to.

“And once we all realized we wanted to be an 11-0 team, we all hustled and got into the passing lanes and created bad passes or shots.”

Deering still led 29-23 after Ella Ramonas (22 points, 11 in the fourth) hit a 3-pointer with 3:35 remaining in the third quarter. Scarborough fought back to lead 33-31 before Ramonas scored late in the quarter to tie the game at 33 heading into the fourth.

Chelsea Saucier gave the Rams their last lead, taking a lob pass from Ramonas on a back-door cut and scoring to make it 35-33. Maria Philbrick (11 of her 12 points in the second half) tied it, and then Mary Redmond and Briggs scored inside for a 39-35 lead.

Ramonas hit a 3 to pull Deering within one, but Scarborough slowed it down, got fouled and marched to the foul line – where the Red Storm didn’t miss to consistently maintain a five-point lead.

Deering Coach Mike Murphy was not upset at the free-throw discrepancy: Scarborough was 26 of 35, Deering 8 of 15.

“We fouled them,” he said. “We played defense with our hands, not our feet.”

He was more upset with the overall effort.

“We just made poor decisions with the ball and on defense,” said Murphy. “We just had too many empty possessions.”

Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:

mlowe@pressherald.com

Twitter: MikeLowePPH