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Mar. 7—GRAY — When Gray-New Gloucester needed a spark on Saturday, sharpshooter Anthony Prescott provided it in a 70-56 victory over rival Poland.
Prescott had a team-high 15 points, all behind the 3-point line. Wyatt Kenney was also solid offensively, with 14 points, while Jay Hawkes had 13 points and Joshua Michaud had 12 points.
“We are a tough team to cover, we do have some offensive type of guys,” Patriots coach Ryan Deschenes said. “We usually have four shooters on the court and if we move the ball with pace, the right guys are getting a shot at the right time. We found Prescott early and once he sees one goes in, he can have a big game.”
After an opening bucket by Poland’s Evan Kelly it was all Patriots in the first quarter as they scored seven unanswered points en route to an 18-8 lead. Prescott knocked down two 3-pointers in the quarter.
Poland started to claw back in the game in the second quarter, outscoring the Patriots 17-11 as Hunter Gibson had eight of his game-high 24 points. Kelly, who had three points in the first quarter, added another five in the second quarter. He had another two points in the fourth quarter to finish the game with 10.
Hayden Christener had four of his 10 points in the second.
Prescott came off the bench in the third quarter and had an instant impact, hiting back-to-back 3s to extend the Patriots’ lead.
“You can make two 3s in 20 seconds and a (tie game) goes to (a six-point lead),” Deschenes said. “I think we did a nice job finding him late in the third, he did a nice job spacing. You have to put the ball in the hole and he did.”
The back-to-back 3s changed the momentum.
“We got off to a slow start and I was really happy how we grinded it out at the end of the first quarter and until about three minutes left in the third,” Poland coach Tyler Tracy said. “They hit those two 3s. We grinded, we tied the game and just like that, they are up by six. You can see it in our body language that it affected us and you can see it in their body language, they were ready to go.”
Hawkes added five points in the third quarter as the Patriots took a 48-37 lead into the fourth. Isaiah Hill scored five of his seven points in the third quarter for the Knights.
Hawkes wasn’t afraid to go into the paint on Saturday.
“Jay is a dynamic scorer, probably one of the better shooters in (the Western Maine Conference), but he can get to the rim and he can score in transition,” Deschenes said. “That’s nice, if your shot is not falling you can find other ways to shoot and Jay does a nice job of that.”
Early in the fourth quarter, Prescott gave Gray-New Gloucester a 53-39 lead as he nailed his fifth and final 3-pointer of the game. Tracy took a timeout after the 3 to try to settle things down for the Knights.
Gibson tried to put Poland on his back as he dropped in 13 points, but the deficit was too big to dig out of.
He was also in foul trouble as the game wore on.
“He’s a tough kid and he wants to win so bad,” Tracy said. “Unfortunately he got in a little bit of rhythm, then (he got in foul trouble) every time he got going. I didn’t take him out early in the fourth quarter, but it was a nine-point game and if he picks up his fifth (foul), that would have been real, real tough. I thought we could keep (the deficit to nine) for a couple minutes but we weren’t able to.”
Kenney and Michaud made their mark in the fourth quarter for the Patriots, as Kenney had six points and Michaud had five points as both teams traded baskets throughout the quarter. Gray-New Gloucester outscored Poland 22-19 in the final frame.
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