By Wayne E. Rivet

Staff Writer

FRYEBURG — So far this season, junior guard Kyle Littlefield has been somewhat of a streaky shooter.

He sank three 3-pointers against Leavitt, but failed to make one in a loss to Yarmouth.

“I thought he wasn’t in rhythm when shooting. We talked about being in rhythm, be shot ready, and that’s the way he approached it tonight. He’s been up and down. It was nice to see him bounce back tonight,” Fryeburg Academy Coach Sedge Saunders said.

With the game on the line, Littlefield delivered last Thursday night at Wadsworth Arena.

Trailing 46-43, guard Armel Maloji drove the lane and attracted attention from a couple of Lake Region defenders. Maloji spotted Littlefield in the left corner and dished a perfect pass beyond the arc.

Littlefield lined up the shot and confidently pulled the trigger. Nothing but net with 3.2 seconds on the clock as the Raiders erased a five-point deficit in the final 18.2 seconds left in regulation.

“We had a set play prior to that, which we botched. At the end of the game, Armel made a nice play. We know we are going to have to kick the ball back out, and Armel made a nice read, got the ball back out to Kyle, and he knocked it down. He was in the right spot. He stepped into it and made a heck of a shot,” Saunders said. “When he made that 3 to tie the game, he had some confidence at that point, and we wanted to go with the hot hand. I was probably screaming ‘pull it out’ but he shot it and made it, and is smarter than I am.”

Littlefield stayed hot, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers in overtime to lead Fryeburg Academy to a 59-54 victory. Littlefield finished with a team-high 16 points.

“He showed some guts and was ready to make those shots because we needed them. It was huge. Him making two in overtime kept the momentum going,” Saunders said. “We thought they were a little hesitant at the end of the game, so we wanted to get up and close it out.”

Fryeburg started the game on a roll behind the inside play of “Big Will” Hallam. The 6-foot-8 center came off the bench to score six points as the Raiders jumped out to a 17-13 lead.

“Big Will powered it up. He has good hands and is a load to deal with. He doesn’t seem to get to fazed by anything. He gave us a huge lift off the bench (scoring 13 points),” Saunders said. “I think we got a nice boost from the bench. We had some guys give us a spark and gave us some hope. Calvin Southwick has a lot of heart. He helped us hold it together.”

LR’s junior center Evan Willey (27 points, 11 rebounds) rallied his club with an array of offensive moves, either spinning baseline for a reverse lay-up or draining open jumpers.

“I told Armel that if he (Willey) catches it, you have to make him dribble it. You can’t give him a clean look. When they were posting us up, I told them we have to front him. You can’t allow him to catch it there, and if he does catch it there, we need to force him to the middle where there is help. You can’t let him spin baseline, which he did a couple of times, because he’ll score. We did a better job on him as the game went along,” Saunders said.

With Willey scoring seven points and Isaac Holland (8 points) coming off the bench to knock down a pair of 3-pointers, the Lakers went on a 15-8 run to close out the half with a 28-25 lead. FA narrowed the gap in the closing minute with Bobby Hallam (4 points, 4 rebounds) and Will Hallam going 2-for-2 from the foul line as the Raiders were a perfect 7-of-7 from the charity stripe in the first half.

The Lakers found their stride defensively in the third quarter as the Raiders struggled from the field, shooting a woeful 1-of-9, Meanwhile, guard Noah Duprey (11 points, 6 rebounds) swished a 3-pointer when the FA defense dropped down to double up Willey in the lane. Willey closed out a 10-6 run with a strong inside burst and sank the foul shot to put the Lakers up 38-31.

Momentum seemed to be with the Lakers as Derek Langadas netted a 3-pointer to start the fourth to push the lead to 10.

But, the Raiders dug in and showed some grit defensively as junior Eli Mahan came to life to control the boards (five rebounds). With four different players scoring, the Raiders went on an 8-2 tear. With 1:18 left, Mahan snagged his own miss inside and scored to make it LR 43, FA 41.

The Lakers appeared to weather the rally when Fryeburg was hit with a technical foul. Duprey made both shots with 48.8 seconds left. Keeping possession, the Lakers expanded the lead to five as Willey made one of two foul shots.

Mahan (10 points, 8 rebounds) answered with a strong inside move with 18.2 seconds remaining.

Willey had a chance to nail down the win (push the lead to four), but missed a free throw try setting the stage for Littlefield’s heroics.

LR never lead in overtime as Littlefield gave the Raiders a five-point lead with a pair of 3-pointers. LR had a chance to tie the game, but a wide-open look at a trey was off the mark.

“We played a great 30 minutes of basketball. Fryeburg is a really tough team. Down the stretch, little things that we talk about in practice — shot selection and understanding time and score — got away from us. With a two-possession lead under a minute left, we’re getting wide-open layups and that’s it. We’ll look to get better at it. My job as a coach of a young team is to keep practicing situations,” Laker Coach Ryan Martin said. “The good thing is we’ve played a lot of close games and hopefully at tournament time we’ll be comfortable in that situation.”

FA went to the line 10 times over the final 1:15, and made five as Maloji went 4-for-4, and finished the night with 10 points and 7 rebounds.

“We were too wound up early and weren’t executing well. Certainly, in the second half, we started to ‘D’ it up. We rebounded better in the second half. We had two big guys in there, but also had Bobby Hallam, who is a quick jumper, got us some offensive rebounds. Armel started to rebound. We started to dominate the boards,” Coach Saunders added. “We need to make better decisions. There were times that we ball faked and threw it in the same direction. We hesitated making the right read. We just have to be better in being in synch. We have some new guys who hadn’t seen a 1-3-1 (defense) all year. Eventually, they adjusted to it pretty well. We have to have other guys step up. It’s going to be a battle every night. These guys need to understand that. They need to be ready to play right from the opening tip.”

Up next:

Fryeburg Academy (3-4, ranked ninth in Class A South) travels to York tonight for a 6:30 p.m. game, and head to Lake Region on Tuesday for a rematch at 7 p.m. FA stays road warriors with a game next Friday at Yarmouth at 6:30 p.m. Next home game is Monday, Jan. 20 against Freeport at 4 p.m.

Lake Region (4-3, ranked third in Class B South) hosts Wells tonight, Thursday, at 7 p.m., travels to Waynflete on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and hosts the Raiders Tuesday.