OLD ORCHARD BEACH — The Saint Dominic Academy girls basketball team is going to be seeing Seagulls in their sleep ”“ and it definitely won’t be a sweet dream.
That’s because the Old Orchard Beach girls played in-your-face, pressure defense from start to finish as the No. 4 Seagulls cruised to a 63-13 victory over the No. 13 Saints in the Class C West preliminary round on Tuesday night.
“It’s funny, this group knows you have to turn it up a notch (in the playoffs),” said OOB coach Dean Plante. “I’m not saying in the regular season they coast, but there are games that they kind of knew they were going to win and they tempered it and paced themselves ”¦ you know, they are experienced and that goes a long way.”
Seniors Abby Dubois, Mackenzie Rague and Haley Plante set the tone for the Seagulls, who opened the game on an 8-0 run.
Dubois was key in the early run as she was all over the court and would score six points in the opening period, which ended with the Seagulls up 12-6.
“Abby is always high energy. She knows one speed and it’s full speed. We feed off her intensity,” said Dubois.
OOB kept up the full-court pressure defense in the second quarter and would hold the visiting Saints to just three points in the frame.
“These kids know how to prepare, especially the four seniors and everybody follows suit. We knew what they did well and I thought we took it away really well,” said coach Plante, who saw his defense force several turnovers and get both a five-second and 10-second violation in the win.
The OOB defense continued to haunt the Saints in the second half as the Seagulls held the visitors to four points in the final two periods.
“We just knew we had to come out with intensity like we usually do and play together,” said Dubois, who helped the Seagulls outscore the Saints 33-4 in the second half.
Dubois, who led OOB with 19 points and seven assists, was happy to get a win in her final home game.
“This was the last time we’ll ever play in our home gym, so this was probably more than we could have hoped for,” said Dubois of getting the big win.
Haley Plante would finish with 12 points ”“ all on 3-pointers ”“ and she was all smiles after the win.
“I’m so proud. I feel like we have so much chemistry, we do so well together and this was huge for us,” said Plante.
OOB would also get six points each from Peyton Feitz, Rague and Brianna Plante. Saint Dom’s was led by Faith Grady with eight points.
The Seagulls will now face No. 5 Mountain Valley next Tuesday in the quarterfinals in Augusta.
“Mountain Valley is your typical Mountain Valley Conference team. They are a little deeper than Saint Dom’s, they have some size and they are going to pressure us which I’m OK with. I like our team against pressure. We will play at an uptick, we’ll play an uptempo game if that’s what they want to do. Everybody that’s left after tonight, it’s going to be a battle and we know that,” said coach Plante.
— Sports Editor Pat McDonald can be contacted at pmcdonald@journaltribune.com. Follow the sports department on Twitter @JournalTsports.
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