WESTBROOK – Going into this season, Westbrook boys basketball coach Mark Karter knew his squad would have to have a balanced scoring attack to stay competitive in games against the tough competition in Western Class A.

On Tuesday night against Cheverus, at least, it was mission accomplished.

The Blue Blazes had four players score at least eight points and led nearly the entire way in a 56-48 victory over the Stags in Westbrook, the first time Westbrook has gotten the better of Cheverus (2-2) since most of the current roster was in elementary school. The win moves the Blazes to 3-1 as they rebounded well from a 54-36 defeat to South Portland last Friday.

“It’s been awhile since we’ve been competitive with them and I though the kids came in and did a great job tonight kind of meeting their physicalness,” Westbrook coach Mark Karter said. “We don’t really have one outstanding scorer, we rely on a bunch of people and when they’re all playing good aggressive basketball, it makes us a much better team. I thought we were able to match their aggressiveness and also make some shots.

“The way we play we’re not going to really go out and jump on people and get big leads. We need to play controlled and smart and for the most part I thought we did tonight.”

Keenan Lowe was the do-it-all star for the Blazes, leading the team with 16 points (the third different leading scorer for Westbrook through four games) and also tallying six boards, five assists and five steals. Big men D.J. Breunig and Alec Hazlewood added 12 and 11 points, respectively, while Zack Bean chipped in eight.

“Our starting five are all seniors and we can all score the basketball so you never know who’s going to score,” Lowe said. “With our team, anyone can go off.”

After trailing 3-0 and 6-3 early, the Blazes took their first lead on a Lowe jumper midway through the first and never relinquished it, opening up an 18-12 advantage after one. Hazlewood (6-foot-5) and Breunig (6-foot-4) controlled the paint in the early going, with the pair combining to score the Westbrook’s first seven points in the second to increase the lead to 25-16. On the other side, the Stags’ first 15 points all came from behind the arc, and the Blazes’ lead ballooned to as much as 10 as they went into half with a 31-22 advantage.

“Offensively they’re tough because they run a round a lot and we had a hard time matching up with them, but I thought our size worked to our advantage a bit,” Karter said. “We rebounded the ball well and on offense were able to get loose and get some easy shots inside, which helped us out.”

Westbrook looked a threat to run away with it in the third, with close-in baskets from Lowe, Hazlewood and Chris Connolly increasing the lead to 37-25 before an 8-0 Cheverus run got it back to four. But a Sean Zany runner in the final minute of the quarter stopped the bleeding, and Westbrook went on a 14-8 run to start the fourth to get the lead back to 12, 53-41.

The Stags had one more run left in them, using a pressure defense to force the Blue Blazes into multiple mistakes in the last two minutes to get the game back to 53-48, but two clutch Lowe free throws and another one from Hazlewood in the final minute clinched the eight-point win.

“At halftime I knew that they were going to make a push, they’re a good team and they know how to do that,” Lowe said. “We just had to make sure we didn’t turn the ball over. We started to for a little bit but we got it back together. I think we played well all in all.”

“We were up 12 late and we didn’t play as well as we would have liked to kind of stretch it out,” Karter added. “We let them back in it the last minute and a half and that’s something we’ll work on in practice and hopefully get better at.”

Westbrook will look to go three games above .500 when it hosts 2-2 Biddeford on Friday, the second of a fortuitous run of six straight home games that will also include Noble, Windham, Bonny Eagle and Sanford over the next three weeks. Though just four games in, Karter said he likes where his team is at, even more so after the win Tuesday.

“We have a lot of guys who haven’t really played a lot of varsity basketball so we’re kind of all learning together, but it’s a great group,” he said. “They listen and they work hard and I think our ceiling is real high. I’m pretty pleased with where we’re at for this point in the season.”

Westbrook guard Keenan Lowe looks for a pass over Cheverus guard Spencer Noel on Tuesday. Lowe led the Blue Blazes with 16 points in the 56-48 victory.
Westbrook forward Alec Hazlewood goes up for two in the paint in the second quarter against Cheverus on Tuesday. Hazlewood had 10 points in the Blue Blazes’ 56-48 victory.