WINSLOW — Winslow’s shooting in Friday night’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference clash with once-beaten Lincoln Academy went from warm to absolute-zero cold to red hot. But the Black Raiders’ hard-nosed defense remained a constant.

Winslow survived a 16-minute stretch in the middle quarters but rebounded and held the Eagles without a field goal for five minutes in the fourth quarter and went on a 19-6 run to avenge an earlier loss to Lincoln, 48-33.

Lincoln defeated Winslow in their previous meeting on Dec. 28, 51-46.

Winslow’s Heather Kervin led all scorers with 21 points to go along with six rebounds. Brie Wajer led Lincoln with 15 points and seven steals.

The Black Raiders missed 16 straight shots from Kervin’s rare four-point play near the end of the first quarter to Delaney Wood’s drive with 2:01 left in the third quarter. Incredibly, Wood’s hoop snuffed Lincoln’s only lead since the first quarter, and the Raiders (11-3) never trailed again.

“We had to lock down on defense,” Kervin said. “That was the biggest thing that I was stressing the entire game. I kept telling the girls to take pride on defense. You can’t win a game if you don’t play defense. We just had to grind it out.”

Wood’s hoop opened the flood gates for Winslow. Leslie Littlefield followed with a fastbreak layup for its final field goal of the third quarter. Then the Raiders made seven of nine shots in the fourth, spreading the wealth with Littlefield, Wood, Kervin, Paige Trask (eight points) and Ciara LeClair all contributing.

“Paige Trask hit a big shot to help us get out of that drought. She did the same thing down to Spruce Mountain and she’s a freshman,” Winslow coach Lindsey Withee said. “And when Heather’s playing well, we play well.”

Kervin played well from the opening tap, scoring 12 points in the first quarter as Winslow opened a 17-8 lead. She made two free throws to increase that to 19-9 to start the second quarter, which would be the Raiders’ last points for nearly 12 minutes.

But the Eagles (12-2) were slow to take advantage. Poor shooting from the field (11-for-39) and free throw line (10-for-23) and Winslow’s ability to keep their much bigger opponents off the boards held them at bay.

“They beat us on the boards down there,” Withee said. “They’re well-coached and a great team. We just had to believe in ourself. We made it a point to make sure we found a body and boxed out.”

“We missed a lot of inside shots,” Lincoln Academy coach Kevin Feltis said. “We talk about it all the time — it’s free throws and layups that win these games and we just missed too many of both.”

Lincoln finally got some offense going inside in the third quarter with baskets from Avae Traina and Samantha Burke to take the lead. But Winslow was able to find the range and pull away in the fourth quarter.

“We started being more patient on offense and we just started getting wide-open looks and shots started falling for us again,” Kervin said. “Once some started falling, you could tell the intensity picked right back up. Everyone’s heads went from their chest right up to the ceiling.”

Randy Whitehouse — 621-5638

rwhitehouse@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @RAWmaterial33