Girls Basketball: Despite an impressive fourth, Bonny Eagle loses big to Scarborough

STANDISH—The Scots controlled the waning eight minutes vs. visiting Scarborough on Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 1, outscoring the Storm 15-2. But even that dominant effort wasn’t sufficient to catch BE up – their opponents had steamrolled them 44-15 through the first three quarters. Net result: 46-17.

“Obviously, they shoot threes like nobody’s business,” Bonny Eagle head coach Scott Regan said of Scarborough. “They’re a phenomenal shooting team. We also know they like to run a little bit of a wheel offense…that runs off the screen. So we’ve been working the past few days, and that’s something we’ve got to get better at, is how to handle that screen and not get screened off the ball.”

The sides kicked things off looking fairly even: Scarborough hopped out front 7-5 through the opening minutes, but Scot Emily Bartash balanced the scoreboard at 7-7 with a pair of frees around the 4:00 mark. The Storm launched into 15 unanswered after that, however, seizing a 22-7 upper-hand and appearing to figure Bonny Eagle out. In the second quarter alone, Scarborough outpaced BE 14-2 – Ember Hastings added the Scots’ points from the foul line.

Score at the half: 28-9.

“We’ve been trying to convince the girls to work on coming over the top against a shooting team like this, or like Massabesic – teams that run off a screen – to come over the top, and we didn’t do that very well,” Regan said. “Second quarter, I mean, it was 7-7 and they went on a 22-2 run against us. The hard part is most of that was us. We set up a press-breaker with adjustments to their pressure; we didn’t do it. We would sit there, and somebody would go to the wrong spot. Part of it’s our youth and inexperience.”

The Storm battered Bonny Eagle in the third as well, to the tune of 16-6. Bartash contributed four on a pair of twos for BE in the stretch, and Lexi Theberge contributed a two, too. For their part, Scarborough surged on a three by Lindsay Fiorillo – Fiorillo had three threes in the outing – and a three by Bella Dickinson. Madison Blanche added a pair of twos for the visitors, as did Elizabeth Lefebvre; Kayla Conley added a two.

“Another piece that killed us,” Regan said, “we had opportunities early, and we didn’t take advantage of them. We had a lot of fumbled balls, a lot of tipped balls we should’ve had rebounds on. Little mental errors.”

The teams swapped some fresh personnel onto the floor in the fourth, allowing the Scots to take the offensive reins. Elora Larrivee and Spring Parsons notched a three apiece in the stretch, and Jillian Faulkner notched a pair of twos and five frees. On defense, BE held the Storm – impressively – to just a couple frees, both by Ayden Harris.

“We closed it a little bit,” Regan said of the fourth, “but again, the middle two quarters, when you get outscored 30-8, it’s going to bury you every single time.”

Seventh-ranked Bonny Eagle slipped on the loss to 3-4. The team moved back to .500 a few days later, however, when they triumphed over No. 8 Thornton Academy, 43-34. The Scots travel to Edward Little (last in AA North at 0-8) on Tuesday, Jan. 7.

“I don’t think we showed very well what we’re capable of, today,” Regan said. “Offensively, we got out of our rhythm, didn’t do what we needed to do. Part of that was them and part of it was us.”