Mountain Valley shakes off a humbling loss to cruise past Livermore Falls.
LIVERMORE FALLS – Short-term memory loss. Occasional hard falls. Good days and bad days.
Signs of advancing age? Not in the case of the Mountain Valley High School girls’ basketball team. On the contrary, the Falcons aren’t likely to experience many senior moments, because, well, they don’t have enough seniors to form a barber shop quartet.
Two days after Mountain Valley suffered one the most humbling defeats imaginable, that selective memory and precocious personality served the Falcons superbly Saturday afternoon in a 62-32 MVC rout of the Livermore Falls Andies.
Kristen Arsenault, one of three sophomores among the starting five, scored 23 points to lead Mountain Valley (2-1) back from the disappointment of Thursday’s game in which next-door neighbor and nine-time defending Western Class C champion Dirigo held the Falcons to 11 points.
“We just wanted to come out, prove everybody wrong and show that we’re better players than that,” Arsenault said.
Livermore Falls (1-2) knows how the Falcons felt that evening. The Andies surrendered the first six points of the game, trailed throughout, and saw things really get ugly when they failed to score for a span of more than 10 minutes that included the entire third quarter.
In that period, Livermore Falls missed 13 shots and committed 10 turnovers.
“We’re young, and we couldn’t handle the pressure,” said Livermore Falls coach Ken Jones. “We couldn’t get any offense going against their zone. We were dead. We didn’t move at all.”
Meanwhile, Mountain Valley experienced an “up” day, connecting at just under a 50 percent clip from the field and getting numerous players involved in the offense.
Sophomore Jennifer Hamann added 12 points, six rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots. Tanya Nicols, a junior, also dropped in a dozen points and dished out five assists. Eleven points, Thursday’s threshold, equaled Arsenault’s solo output this time as she pushed the Falcons to a 17-12 advantage. Livermore Falls stayed within six, 24-18, on Rachel Ventrella’s jumper with 3:20 left in the half, but hoops by Nicols, Kristen Arsenault and Jen Arsenault kick-started the decisive run of the game and put Mountain Valley in front 30-19 at the half.
Valen Richard led Livermore Falls with six points. Sara Hughes, Audrey Paradis, Jenika Kelley, Taryn Flagg and Krista Allen each added four for the Andies, who were harassed into 30 turnovers.
“We took a step forward down at Georges Valley, and this was a step back,” said Jones. “We missed some easy shots early, enough that I thought we could have been up at halftime.”
Comments are no longer available on this story