WINSLOW — With team leader Heather Kervin in foul trouble throughout the entire game, the Winslow High School girls basketball team went looking for other players to step up in Monday’s game against Skowhegan. The Black Raiders found a few.

Sophomore Paige Trask nailed five 3-pointers, leading the way with 15 points. Sarah Guimond added 10 points and Ciera LeClair had 11 points, including seven in the fourth quarter, to go with her eight rebounds. The contributions across the board paved the way to a 49-40 win for the Black Raiders.

Winslow improved to 9-1, while Skowhegan is now 8-2.

“One player’s not playing well, somebody else steps up for them,” Winslow coach Lindsey Withee said. “Paige hit some big shots, and I’ll tell you what, Ciera LeClair had the game of her life, just rebounding and hitting shots that mattered down the stretch.”

Winslow scored the first nine points of the game, but Skowhegan battled back, taking brief leads in the second, third and fourth quarters. Sydney Reed’s free throw with 7:24 left in the game gave the Indians a 32-29 lead.

Fifteen seconds later, LeClair’s shot and free throw tied the game at 32. And just under a minute later, Trask made her fourth 3-pointer of the night to give the Black Raiders the lead for good, 35-32. With just over four minutes to play, another Trask three pushed Winslow’s lead to 42-36, and the Black Raiders began to pull away.

LeClair, a senior, said the key to Winslow’s strong finish was confidence.

“Someone had to step up, and we all just came together as a team,” LeClair said. “We knew they were really good. We played them in the past and they beat us.”

One of the top players in the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference, Kervin picked up her second foul with 7:06 left in the second quarter, and sat the rest of the half. With 2:38 left in the third, Kervin picked up her fourth foul and again went to the bench. She returned to the game with 4:23 left, but fouled out 15 seconds later competing for a loose ball near the Skowhegan bench.

“(Kervin) has so much intensity and plays so hard, sometimes she has a hard time funneling that energy and using it wisely. I can’t be mad at her, because she has intensity and plays hard,” Withee said.

Lindsey Warren came off the bench to lead Skowhegan with 11 points. Skowhegan had 25 turnovers, including seven in the fourth quarter.

“They’re a good defensive team. They get after it. They’re a little more athletic than we are, they’re a little bit stronger than we are,” Skowhegan coach Mike LeBlanc said of Winslow. “We just didn’t come out ready to play. They’re well-coached. They just seemed to want it more than we did today, and they came into the building looking like that.”

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM