FARMINGDALE — You don’t see this every day: Mt. Abram kept Hall-Dale from going to the free-throw line even once during Thursday night’s game.

Unfortunately for Mt. Abram, the Bulldogs did whatever else they wanted to throughout the game.

It was a perfect storm for Hall-Dale: The Bulldogs were pumped for their home opener, Mt. Abram came out flat, and the Roadrunners happened to play the same defense Hall-Dale had seen three nights earlier. The result was a 59-25 Hall-Dale victory in a Mountain Valley Conference girls basketball game that was over after the first quarter.

“It was our first home game,” said Hall-Dale senior guard Carylanne Wolfington, who paced the Bulldogs with 20 points and nine steals. “It was really exciting. We came into this game knowing they were going to be a strong team. We wanted to push the tempo.”

Hall-Dale (3-0) led 11-0 less than four minutes into the game and 19-4 when Kristina Buck (13 points) drained a 3-pointer in the final seconds of the first quarter.

The Bulldogs hit nine 3-pointers Thursday (four by Wolfington, three by Buck and two by freshman Molly French) but still shot a strong 43 percent on the night.

Advertisement

“They came out in a 1-3-1 zone in the first half,” Hall-Dale coach Brandon Terrill said. “We had just played St. Dom’s on Monday, who ran a 1-3-1 zone almost the whole game against us. So we were very prepared and knew exactly what to do against a 1-3-1 zone.”

Conversely, Mt. Abram (1-1) never solved Hall-Dale’s press and finished with 36 turnovers. Mikayla Luce led the Roadrunners with 12 points, and Miranda Smith added seven points and 12 rebounds, but no one else scored for Mt. Abram until more than 22 minutes into the game.

“My girls were wrecked that first quarter,” Mt. Abram coach Doug Lisherness said. “They were nervous, throwing the ball away, missing bunnies. As bad as that, or maybe even worse, was that we didn’t even come close to matching their intensity. They were working twice as hard as we were. They were in high gear, and we weren’t.”

Hall-Dale’s lead was 30-6 at one point and 30-11 at halftime. Three minutes into the second half, it was 38-13, and the Bulldogs kept going from there.

Now, the two coaches likely will stress certain truths: Not every game against a solid team will be this easy for Hall-Dale; Mt. Abram is surely a much better team than they showed in this game.

“We knew that these next five games (beginning with Mt. Abram) are going to be a good, stiff challenge,” Terrill said. “So I don’t think we’ll get too high after this game. I think we’ll realize that it’s one game, played very well, but we’ve got some more challenges ahead.”

“(We’ll) make these girls well aware of the fact that the reason this happened was we got outworked,” Lisherness said. “We’ve got to be willing and ready to pick it up against Madison Saturday night and get our confidence back.”

Matt DiFilippo — 861-9243
mdifilippo@centralmaine.com
 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.