NEWPORT — Everything worked for the Nokomis Regional High School girls basketball team during Tuesday’s 54-20 win over Winslow, and with the regular season winding down, that should give the rest of Eastern Maine Class B pause.

“This is the first time we’ve been cohesive as a unit out there on the floor,” Nokomis coach Michelle Paradis said. “Sometimes I have maybe two people are going. Tonight we actually had five people on the same page.”

Nokomis improved to 13-0, while Winslow is now 10-4. It was the sixth straight game in which the Warriors held their opponent under 40 points.

The Warriors took control of the game with an 18-0 run which spanned the first and second quarters. They key, Paradis said, was settling down the offense to allow the post duo of Anna MacKenzie and Mikayla Charters to make their cuts and let the offense flow.

“We have been preaching to our guards to slow down, and allow people to actually get to their position and cut. We pass the ball around so many times and so fast that our post people can stand their with their eyes wide open and wait,” Paradis said. “That makes a big difference, especially when you have two dominating post people like we do, in Mikayla and Anna. We definitely need to get touches inside to them.”

It worked. Six Nokomis players scored in the first half as the Warriors built a 26-10 halftime lead, with offense coming from the paint and the perimeter.

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“We’ve been working hard in practice to work it out. Our last game (a 36-33 win over Waterville) wasn’t one of our best performances,” said MacKenzie, who scored nine points and grabbed seven rebounds. “We’re figuring it out and it’s slowly coming and I think it’s starting to click.”

Kelsie Richards made four 3-pointers and scored a game-high 13 points for Nokomis.

“You pick your poison. Do you want to stop the inside game, or stop the outside game?” Winslow coach Lindsey Welch said. “We tried to stop the inside game and unfortunately, they scored inside and outside.”

The Warriors controlled the boards throughout the game, grabbing 35 rebounds to Winslow’s 28. Nokomis had 11 offensive rebounds.

“It felt like there was 20 players out there in 20 white jerseys crashing the boards every time. We just got outworked tonight by a very good team,” Welch said.

Charters scored seven points and grabbed six rebounds for Nokomis, while Lindsey Whitney scored six points. Devin Fitzgibbons led the Black Raiders with six points, and Hannah Doble had seven rebounds for Winslow.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242tlazarczyk@centralmaine.comTwitter: @TLazarczykMTM


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