LAWRENCE — The Bulldogs got Folsom Gym rocking Wednesday night. Unfortunately, they had to claw back from a 20-point third-quarter deficit in order to do that.
Lawrence closed to within four points midway through the final period, but the comeback bid fell short in a 58-51 Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference boys basketball loss to Brewer.
Junior Owen Fullerton’s 26-point night in the paint led the way for the Witches, who also got double-digit nights from Charles Brydges (18) and Steven Youngs (10).
“He grew two or three inches this year. He used to be a guard,” Brewer coach Carl Parker said of Fullerton. “He has good basketball skills, and he’s shooting the ball much, much better. He’s just coming into his own. He was a JV player last year, and every game he seems to get better and better and better.”
Up by eight at halftime, Brewer (4-3) sprinted out of the gates after the break. The visitors opened the third period with an 18-4 run to take a 47-27 lead with 4:08 left in the quarter.
At that point, Lawrence coach Jason Pellerin pulled his starting five off the floor and replaced them with the reserves. It was the wakeup call the Bulldogs needed, as they rallied back — scoring the first 12 points of the fourth period. A pair of Dane Zawistowski free throws with 5:01 left got Lawrence to within 50-46, but the Bulldogs would get no closer.
“We were getting stops and we put together eight good possessions, and we got momentum on our side,” Pellerin said. “But you need to make every play at that point, and that didn’t happen for us.”
The Witches closed things out with possession and ball control over the final four and a half minutes.
“We started falling apart in the half-court when they were pressing us, but we got it back,” Fullerton said. “Coach called timeout, and told us to think of it like practice. We practice a lot of fourth-quarter situations. We just played through that.”
The reigning Class A North champion Witches have an entirely new look — and roster — this season, and nights like Wednesday have been somewhat of a norm.
“Every game is a good learning experience for us,” Parker said. “We have a tendency because of our lack of experience to think whenever a team makes a little run that everything’s going to cave in. It’s not. I call it the ‘regulator gene.’ You can control the regulator gene. Sometimes kids want to think, ‘It’s happening again, it’s happening again.’ We just focused on the situation.”
Zawistowski was phenomenal in the first half for Lawrence (3-3). The senior guard connected for five three-pointers in the opening 16 minutes as part of his team-high 18 points.
But in the end, the Bulldogs were outscored, out-rebounded and generally outworked for all but a single stretch overlapping the third and fourth quarters.
“We played with some grit and we played with some toughness, but only for about a quarter and a half,” Pellerin said. “They had us for two and a half quarters.”
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