OAKLAND — His team getting away from its identity, Sam Smith called a timeout to remind his players who they were.

The Messalonskee boys basketball team found itself trailing 23-14 early in the second quarter of Saturday’s season opener against Lawrence. In the huddle, the Eagles’ first-year head coach told his players he wanted his team to dictate the game through its defense. 

The players listened, and Messalonskee went on to a first half-ending 17-0 run en route to a 60-51 victory.

“We had the first-game jitters a little bit — making plays they don’t normally make — but then I called that timeout and told them, ‘Guys, we’re a defensive team first,’” Smith said. “We knew we had to get back to that if we were going to take over, and it did. I’m really proud of what we did defensively.”

Jacob Moody had 20 points and six rebounds for Messalonskee (1-0), while teammate Sam Dube scored 15 points and Merrick Smith added 10 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks. Gavin Lunt had 16 points to lead Lawrence, which also got 13 points from Dane Zawistowski, while Michael Hamlin added 10 points and eight rebounds.

The first quarter belonged to Lawrence, which pounded Messalonskee on the boards in the opening frame. After the Eagles scored the first two points, the Bulldogs went on a 12-2 run and led 17-10 after one quarter behind six points each from Lunt and Zawistowski.

With Lawrence (0-1) leading 23-14 in the second quarter, though, Messalonskee took over. After cutting the deficit to two, the Eagles got back-to-back baskets from Smith to take the lead. Moody and Sam Dube then sank 3-pointers as Messalonskee finished off its 17-0 run to end the half.

“A lot of our buckets were coming in mid-transition instead of flowing out of our offense, so when we stopped hitting those, we didn’t have much to fall back on because we weren’t really executing well,” said Lawrence head coach Jason Pellerin. “I think that was a big part of it; they got hot, but we also weren’t having good possessions.”

After two free throws from Ty Bernier to begin the second half, Lawrence finally stopped the bleeding at 19 straight points as Lunt made two straight baskets. But Messalonskee responded by going on another run, this one a 9-0 spurt that gave the Eagles their largest lead of the game at 15 points.

The Bulldogs fought back to pull within nine late in the third quarter but failed to get any closer. Riding nine points from Dube in the fourth, the Eagles kept the game out of reach and claimed a key early win in the battle of two of the preseason favorites in Class A North.

“We knew they were going to give us a tough game because that’s what they do; Pellerin always has his team playing hard,” Sam Smith said. “They can win games from the 3-point line, and early in the game, they were winning from the 3-point line, so I had to say, ‘Fellas, we’ve worked on this,’ and we made that adjustment.”

Although Merrick Smith was limited to 10 points offensively, the 6-foot-9 forward still had a big presence (figuratively and literally) with his game-high 11 rebounds and four blocked shots. The junior center’s biggest impact, Pellerin said, was how uncomfortable he made Lawrence defensively.

“Merrick’s tough because you’ve got to be so aware of where he’s at that it maybe takes you out of passing lanes and kind of shrinks things down,” Pellerin said. “It’s almost just like we were so attracted to where he was that it maybe prevented us from being as aggressive as we needed to be in the passing lanes.”

Lawrence was still able to have success rebounding-wise against Messalonskee, with Hamlin and Brandon Watson (nine rebounds) holding their own against Smith. Yet the Eagles ultimately picked up the pace on the boards, getting a number of offensive rebounds to extend possessions and build on the runs.

With the win, Messalonskee has now won eight of its past 12 games dating back to last season, which began with a 1-8 slump before the Eagles turned things around late. It definitely feels, Moody said, as if the momentum from that turnaround has carried over into a new season.

“I think we always had the talent and the ability, but we had to put it together,” Moody said. “I think we’ve been playing a lot more as a team (since then), and we came together and played as a team tonight. If we keep doing that, I think we’ll be pretty good.”

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