WELLS — Many times, the biggest shots in a basketball game are taken at the end of a half.
Very few times are those shots thrown up at the end of the first half.
Wells, however, desperately needed someone, anyone, to make a big shot just before halftime on Monday night against Freeport. And, just as one would expect, it was Alison Furness who stepped up and did just that.
The senior standout canned a 3-pointer in the final minute of the second quarter, closing the Falcons’ nine-point lead to 22-16 at halftime.
Wells had made just five shots from the field before that point, but rode the momentum from the 3-pointer into the second half, which also began with a Furness three to kick-start a 17-2 Warriors run that ultimately was the difference in a 45-40 Wells win in a Western Maine Conference Class B girls basketball game at Ronco Gymnasium.
“I thought that three that Furness hit right before the half was huge; there’s just a big difference between nine and six,” Wells coach Dan Abbott said. “And obviously we came out of the locker room on a pretty good run and were able to sort of impose our will defensively.”
Furness, who scored 12 of her game-high 23 points in the crucial third quarter, was a little more nonchalant about the importance of her two 3s on either side of halftime.
“I don’t really think about that. I just kind of shot it,” she said. “Last year, when we won games, it was normally a dig-yourself-out kind of win. We have some experience with this.”
Despite sporting a 1-4 record going in, Freeport carried the play for most of the first half, using a 10-2 run to take a 16-11 lead and pushing that to 22-13 late in the second quarter as Wells struggled to find the gaps in the Falcons’ 2-3 zone.
“They’ve been in just about every game that they’ve played,” Abbott said of Freeport, which has lost three games by five or fewer points. “I was just nervous that it might be us for a while and it certainly looked that way for a while, down 22-13.”
But Furness found herself open in the corner for the big 3-pointer before half, and hit another on the Warriors’ second possession after the break to close the gap to three.
After an Ashley Richardson basket for Freeport, Wells reeled off 14-straight points, making six shots in a row and turning the Falcons over six times in a four-minute period to take a 33-24 edge.
“We definitely picked up our energy a lot,” Furness said. “We went in at the half and talked and knew we had to run and play really good defense and push them the second half.”
Stephanie Woods also hit a three during the run, causing Freeport to come out of its shell and opening up the lane for Furness and Jordan Agger (10 points).
“We’re not a big 3-point shoot team, but when a team’s really packing it in on you in the zone, we had to stretch them a little bit,” Abbott said. “Once we got them to come out of the zone and play man, we were able to do what we do well and attack the basket and get ourselves to the rim.”
The Falcons didn’t go away, closing the quarter with an 8-2 run of its own as star senior forward Nina Davenport (14 points) worked to keep her team in the game.
Freeport then closed to within 35-34 as Lauren Cormier hit the first basket of the fourth quarter, but Nicole Moody then found Furness wide open down low for two and Woods scored on a layup in transition to help the Warriors pull away once and for all.
“Give them credit, they never went away,” Abbott said. “Sometimes when you’re a team that’s lost a lot of close games it becomes easy to just do that, and they certainly didn’t fold up the tent tonight.”
Much like Freeport, Wells (5-1) has been in plenty of close games so far, with each of its last four games decided by eight points or less.
With defending Class C state champion Waynflete heading into Ronco next, it’s a good bet they’ll be in another close one on Friday, which won’t bother Abbott one bit.
“Every one of these that we can add to our cache along the way, you’re getting battle-tested,” he said. “It’s a war in our league every night and these games serve you well come February.
“I love it. It’s good for the character of your team to have to gut out wins like that.”
— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.
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