OAKLAND — The Gold Ball defense got off to a nearly perfect start for the Lawrence girls basketball team Saturday night.
The Bulldogs ran the floor at will, throttling host Messalonskee 63-28 in a season-opening Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference win that suggested Lawrence will once again be among the favorites in Class A North this winter. Junior Lilly Gray led all scorers with 18 points, while freshman guard Madalyn Provost added 16 more.
Lawrence led by 13 after one quarter, 21 at the half and 35 through three periods.
“We’ve been working really hard to push the ball forward and get the momentum going,” Gray said. “We need to come out strong during our games. It’s a new start, new team, new season, new everything. It’s a different team atmosphere.”
After graduating four seniors from its Class A state championship team, Lawrence appeared to have plugged in the next generation of Bulldog standouts.
Head coach Greg Chesley said the message to his team, beginning last summer, has been remembering that the rest of the conference will be seeking to knock the Bulldogs off their throne.
“What the Gold Ball means right now is that we have a target on our back,” Chesley said. “What we can take from last year is that group gave us a great blueprint for what we have to do to get there again.”
Lawrence used defense and transition offense, staples of its recent success, to run Messalonskee off the floor in the first half.
The Eagles, who were hampered by foul trouble and an injury to starting guard Chloe Michaud in the first quarter to test their depth, committed 21 first-half turnovers. Six of those came against Lawrence’s full-court pressure.
“(Defense) is my favorite part of the game,” said Kaylee Elkins, the lone senior on the Bulldog roster, who finished with eight points. “We were locked in on defense. We were locked in on offense. We just had our eye on the prize, but we’re not even close to where we’re going to be in the middle and end of the season.”
The Bulldogs routinely turned those turnovers into easy buckets at the other end of the floor. Elkins scored all eight of her points in the first 16 minutes, while Gray had 10 before the half. Lawrence shot 61.5 percent from the floor in the first two quarters — evidence not of a collectively hot shooting hand, but of the Bulldogs’ ability to generate layups and easy putbacks under the hoop.
Things didn’t ease up in the second half for Messalonskee. Lawrence outscored the hosts 19-5 in the third period before calling off the dogs early in the fourth quarter and emptying the bench.
“Our pressure was really clicking, and we ran the floor well,” Chesley said. “We’ve still got quite a ways to go. We were able to run and not pound (the ball) inside. … We want to be a team that can run the floor, play tough defense and get after it. But if we have to, we can also slow down and run some sets and get the looks we’re looking for.”
Ashley Shores completed the trifecta of Bulldogs to reach double digits, finishing the night with 10 points.
Lexis Bayne led all Eagle scorers with six points, while Ashley Mullen, Keira Goldsmith and Madison Wilson each added four points.
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