FARMINGTON — Sometimes, you can tell the way a basketball game is going to go just from watching the first few minutes. That was certainly the case Tuesday night between the Lawrence and Mt. Blue boys.

Lawrence scored the first eight points of the game, Mt. Blue had seven turnovers before it had a basket, and nothing really changed the rest of the way. Led by a tough defense and a strong inside game, the Bulldogs cruised to a 69-38 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference win.

“Right from the jump, we got out to a big lead. Our defense led to our offense, and we were able to get it down low. We beat them on the glass,” said Lawrence junior Mason Cooper, who scored a game-high 25 points.

The Bulldogs (2-2) led 30-15 at the half, and built the lead primarily in the paint, where the 6-foot-2 Cooper and 6-4 Seth Powers (17 points) controlled everything.

“We were talking at practice, we had to get it down low to Seth because we have a good height advantage, especially when Cooper Hollingsworth (Mt. Blue’s big man) was off the floor,” Cooper said. “That’s something we tried to do from the beginning.”

Powers scored 11 points in the second quarter.

“We know Powers is a good athlete. We said we had to box him out, put a body on him. He played well tonight. He hurt us inside, there’s no question,” Mt. Blue coach Kevin Main said.

“We communicated really well. I thought we were aggressive early on in the game and it really set the tone for us. We were aggressive at both ends. The kids came out really focused tonight,” Lawrence coach Jason Pellerin added.

Mt. Blue committed 15 turnovers in the first half, including seven in the first five minutes of the game, before a Zack Mittelstadt layup put the Cougars (0-4) on the scoreboard.

“That set the tone. They out-rebounded us (31-20), and that hurt. The turnovers hurt us the most tonight,” Main said.

Senior Kyle Robinson led Lawrence’s defensive effort, guarding the high-scoring Mittelstadt most of the game. While Mittelstadt scored a team-high 16 points, nothing came easy.

“Kyle did a great job. Kyle’s one of the best defensive players in all facets of defense. He just plays tough,” Pellerin said.

Neither team got much of an offensive contribution from the bench. Mt. Blue’s starters scored all 38 of the Cougars’ points, and Lawrence’s bench scored seven points, all in the final minutes.

Robinson had seven rebounds for Lawrence, including four offensive. Hollingsworth had seven boards for the Cougars.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM

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