Defense and late-game free throw shooting have been components leading to the Houlton Lady Shires current number-one seeding in Class C girls Heal Point standings.
“I did not expect us to be in this situation at all,” said Graham of the current standings. “I figured we’d be somewhere around the .500 mark.”
The Lady Shires are allowing opponents only 33 points per game, while making 20-of-28 free throws in the fourth quarter in the last three games.
“We’re not big,” said Graham. “But, we have girls who are constantly looking to take the ball to the basket. On the defensive end, we instill in each other the term ‘team defense.’ The girls are buying into the fact that regardless of man or zone defenses, we must constantly communicate with one another and help each other when someone gets beat.”
Last week, the Lady Shires picked up three wins against Lee Academy, Stearns and Schenck.
Against Lee last Thursday at home, the Lady Shires led after the first quarter, 9-5 and at intermission, 25-18. After three, the Lady Shires held a 37-26 advantage en route to a 45-32 victory.
“I felt the team did a nice job at holding Lee’s post players, who were much bigger than us, to only six points,” Graham explained. “They had some guards who hit key jump shots for them, but we felt if we could control the interior we would have a pretty good shot to win the game.”
Marina Cameron led Houlton’s scoring with 16 points, while Taylor Bailey tossed in 10 and grabbed eight rebounds. Amanda Fogarty netted eight points, while Tori Hanson scored five and Makala Folsom added four more.
“We had a good night with our offense in terms of balanced scoring, as well,” said Graham. “Lee came out in a box-and-one defense on Amanda, but Marina, Taylor and Tori all hit some key perimeter shots, which caused them to shift their defense back to a man and some 2-3 zone.”
The Lady Shires’ defense also helped them in the second half, as Graham said, the full court 1-3-1 trap worked better in the second half when the Lady Shires stopped allowing Lee’s ball handler to split two defenders.
The Houlton junior varsity team set the tone defeating Lee soundly, 60-19.
On Monday, the free throw line led the Lady Shires to a 45-42 victory over visiting Schenck. The game was tied 6-all to start and Houlton took a 16-15 advantage into the locker room. But, in the fourth quarter, free throw shooting was crucial.
The Houlton girls went 11-for-15 from the line in the fourth quarter erasing a 30-26 third-quarter deficit.
“It was a sense of urgency and perseverance midway through the fourth quarter that finally kicked in,” said Graham.
The Lady Shires were down by six with about three minutes left when Graham called a timeout.
“I stressed the fact that basketball was a game of runs and up until that point, we needed to trust in our defense, continue to battle and our run would come,” he said.
Listening and trusting their coach, the Lady Shires rallied back to take a one-point lead with a minute and a half to go in the game.
“Once we got the lead, the girls did a nice of taking care of the basketball and hitting free throws,” Graham said.
Houlton’s Cameron converted 14 free throws in the game on her way to 19 points, and she and Bailey combined for seven-of-eight free throw shooting with under a minute and a half left in the game.
“At this point in the season, we’ve got three girls shooting almost 80 percent from the line,” Graham said. “That’s really been a huge part of our early success.”
Bailey and Fogarty finished the game with 10 points apiece.
The Lady Shires have a tough week ahead, as they were scheduled to travel to Caribou yesterday and will play back-to-back games on Friday at Madawaska and Saturday at home against Stearns.
Even though the Houlton girls are undefeated and first in Class C, Graham knows the girls still need to massage their game a bit more.
“I’d like to see the offense get into a better flow,” he said. “We need to continue to work hard on rebounding the ball. We’ve given up more second and third shots at the basket than we’d like.”