Hall-Dale’s KJ Greenhalgh (12) takes a shot during a central Maine tournament game against Kents Hill on Friday in Farmingdale. Dave Dyer/Kennebec Journal
FARMINGDALE — The Hall-Dale girls basketball team made its intentions known in a strong showing Friday night.
The Bulldogs, the No. 1 seed in the central Maine basketball C/D tournament, topped No. 8 Kents Hill 65-42 in a quarterfinal matchup.
A 14-0 run in the first six minutes of the game gave the Bulldogs a quick and big lead. Kents Hill, which was playing its season opener, would claw back. Hall-Dale also took advantage on defense, forcing 13 turnovers out of the Huskies in the first half. Hall-Dale cruised into halftime with a 33-15 lead.
“It feels really good, it was a good team win,” said Hall-Dale’s KK Wills, who finished with 10 points. “Everyone scored and everyone contributed. It was really nice.
“I was super happy with that (run),” Hall-Dale head coach Jarod Richmond added. “Especially with an unknown in Kents Hill. If we can establish the tone and tempo of the game early and get them to adapt to what we wanted to do, and not the other way around, and I thought the girls did an absolute great job of doing that. Really blitzing them out of the gate, finishing layups, making turnovers happen. The turnovers really fed the offense and got ourselves moving. Liked the execution early.”
Everyone on the Hall-Dale roster scored during the game, with Hayden Madore also scoring 10 points. Lily Platt added eight points, while Amanda Trepanier and Rita Benoit each had seven points for Hall-Dale.
Wills was impressed with the play of the Bulldogs’ defense, which she felt led to points on offense.
“Everyone can score, but it starts on the defensive end,” Wills said. “I thought we had really good man-to-man defense and pressure… I think that’s where it started.”
Kents Hill entered the game a tad short-handed. The Huskies were only able to dress six healthy players, Jarni Hewins, one of Kents Hill’s top players, was injured and couldn’t dress for the game. The Huskies also had members of the team who could not attend because of school break.
And to top it all off, it was the first game — of any kind — the Huskies had played this season.
“We talked this morning at shootaround, we had 64 practices this year and no games” Kents Hill head coach RJ Jenkins said. “For them to finally get this opportunity, the whole school was on break. They gave up an extra week and wanted to play. All week we knew, ‘Yup, we know there’s only six (players), Coach. We’re ready to go, we want to play, we want to fight, even if we’re not 100 percent.”
Despite the odds, the Huskies showed fight throughout, particularly in the third quarter in which they scored 14 points, which included three 3-pointers. The Bulldogs were still able to outpace the Huskies offensively in the quarter, and the game, keeping any hope of a comeback far out of reach.
Rose Jenkins led the way for Kents Hill with 12 points and 11 rebounds, while Josie Harper-Cunningham added nine points.
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