By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

FRYEBURG — Junior Shauna Hancock is the glue that holds this young Lake Region girls’ basketball team together.

Without their floor leader (due to a preseason injury), the Lakers came unglued in their first four games — all losses.

Hancock returned to the line-up last Thursday night against rival Fryeburg Academy, and proved to be a difference maker.

The LR guard scored 14 points, collected five rebounds and was a driving force to beat an aggressive Raider full-court press in the Lakers’ 48-37 win at Wadsworth Arena.

“Shauna’s leadership abilities, her presence on the floor, her court vision and being able to handle the ball and control the game, she is obviously a big piece of what we do,” Laker Coach Paul True said. “The way I looked at it is essentially we were asking all of the kids to do probably a little bit more than they are capable of. And now, they can just play their game and do what they are good at.”

It was a tight start as Fryeburg took an early 5-2 lead, making 5-of-6 from the foul line. LR took a brief lead when Hancock drained a 3-pointer, only to see FA’s Camden Jones slice through the LR defense for an easy bucket to tie the game.

Sophomore Liz Smith was aggressive in the lane, scoring four straight points and hauling down four rebounds in the opening stanza as the Lakers went up 13-9.

With Fryeburg struggling to get the ball to drop in the second quarter, shooting at a 4-for-13 clip, the Lakers opened up some daylight behind strong play inside by Smith and Shelby-Lynne Sheldrick, who knocked down a 3-pointer from the right wing and then made a nifty pass to Hancock for a lay-up as the Lakers exploded for a 27-16 lead.

Gritty guard Kayrin Johnson halted the LR surge with a steal, lay-up and a foul shot to complete the 3-point play with 40.8 seconds until halftime. Johnson is certainly tenacious on the defensive end. In one series, she kept tipping the ball away from a LR player in the offensive end, finally ending with the Laker losing a grip on the ball and dribbling it out of bounds under the Raider hoop.

Smith, however, banked a shot off the glass in the final seconds to put the Lakers up 10, 29-19.

Coach True liked the way his club battled through Fryeburg’s pressure and dominated the glass.

“It’s a process. We’re still young and make some mistakes. When we executed, we typically got a good look at the other end,” he said. “We did a great job on the backboard. We were pretty aggressive on the offensive backboard and defensively, for the most part, keeping their active kids off the glass.”

Both coaches were busy for most of the first half shuffling players in and out due to foul trouble.

“Every game presents different challenges. You have to adapt to the hand you are dealt. 10 fouls in the first three minutes. It was a good opportunity for other kids to get in there, and it gave kids with some foul issues the opportunity to show me that they could still play while juggling some foul trouble. We did, at the end of the game, let some easy baskets go in because we didn’t want to put ourselves in a foul situation,” Coach True said. “So, we need to learn to defend better without fouling. This is where the relationship piece in coaching is so important. You have to have a pretty good feel in terms of who you can trust on the floor and who your better decision makers are. I thought Shelby (Sheldrick) did a great job.”

Fryeburg’s pressure and confidence shooting the ball grew in the third quarter, resulting in a 13-5 run to tighten the contest, LR 34-FA 32.

Big shots were made by Merys Carty (a runner in the lane), lay-ups by Johnson and Kaylee Emery, and a 3-pointer by Emily Walker.

LR struggled offensively, shooting 2-of-9 from the field and 1-of-4 from the line.

The Raiders, however, would get no closer.

“We just couldn’t get the shot we wanted. We played well on defense, but we couldn’t get the looks we needed under the basket. We just faded. It took so much energy to get back into the game, we seemed to fizzle out,” FA Coach Sarah Campney said. “I think Lake Region wanted it a little more than we did. We had the size advantage, but their girls came prepared and were ready to go. They wanted the ball.”

With FA missing four foul shots and failing to score a field goal over the first six minutes of the fourth quarter, the Laker regained their stride as Sheldrick netted a 3-pointer and LR shooters were 8-of-8 from the foul line over the final 3:30 of the game to record the victory.

“One of the aspects of maturing is learning how to fight through adversity, which happens in every game that you play in. I thought we did a good job with that. We settled down, made a couple of adjustments and I felt the kids responded and bounced back very well, and immediately extended the lead to eight to 10,” Coach True said. “We’ve been working pretty hard in practice situations being able to score inside. The kids are getting better.”

While it was just one win, Coach True felt it was a big one.

“For a young team, any win is a confidence builder. So, I think this game was important to us. It was the first time since preseason that Shauna was on the floor with some limited minutes,” he said. “The feeling having her back and feeling of some success was important. The team responded well.”

One the other side, Raider Coach Sarah Campney felt her club was too tentative at times and needed to do a better job converting turnovers into easy buckets.

“We’ve worked a lot on finishing, but when we force turnovers, we seem to rush things. We’ve worked on slowing things down and make the shots count. In practice, they do it well but it is without defense. It’s different when it’s a game situation. We seem to feel the pressure a little more when it’s Lake Region, because of the rivalry,” Coach Campney said. “We’ve been working through some injuries. We’ve talked about the importance that this is a very mental game — one that a team can get into your head — we need to learn to play through the injuries and tough moments. They need to have confidence that they can get the job done.”

One area FA will look to improve upon is overall team conditioning.

“One player came up to me after the game and said she wants to do more conditioning work in practice. It takes a lot over 32 minutes. We’re asking a lot of these girls, some who haven’t played a lot of varsity minutes,” Coach Campney said. “They’re doing their best, but there’s more we can do to get them to that next level.

Up next

Fryeburg Academy (1-7, ranked ninth in Class A South) hosts York tonight, Thursday at 6:30 p.m., travels to Lake Region on Tuesday for a 5:30 p.m. game, and hosts Yarmouth next Friday, Jan. 17 at 6:30 p.m.

Lake Region (2-5, ranked 11th in Class B South) head to Wells tonight, Thursday for a 6:30 p.m. game, host Waynflete Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and Fryeburg Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.