The Knights appear to have clinched a playoff berth with Tuesday’s victory.
POLAND – Both Fryeburg and Poland knew Tuesday night’s Western Maine Conference tilt could be crucial to their respective tournament prospects when the Heal Points are finalized at the end of the week.
Unfortunately for the Raiders, they didn’t play like they knew what was at stake for the first 10 minutes of the game.
The Knights did, however, then held off a late rally and clinched their first non-open tournament berth in school history with a 44-41 win.
“We’ve been hoping to get sixth place (in the Heal Point standings) and we knew Fryeburg was our last great obstacle,” said Poland junior Max Levine, whose team was ninth in the most recent standings. “Now, we’ve just got to play our cards right. It’s nice to clinch a playoff berth.”
Eric Piper came out firing early and ended up leading the Knights (8-9) with 16 points, including four 3-pointers in the first half. Kyle Purrington added 10 points. Johannes Gotzler paced the Raiders (7-10) with 13 points and Martin Steinbuck added nine.
“It came down to us digging a hole for ourselves in the first half,” said Fryeburg coach Sedge Saunders, whose team was in sixth place in the most recent Heal standings. “You’ve got to expend a lot of energy if you’re going to come back from that type of deficit. We’re not an explosive team offensively, anyway, so that makes it doubly tough.”
Using crisp ball movement against Fryeburg’s 2-3 zone, Poland make its first four shots and roared out to
a 14-4 lead midway through
the first quarter.
“We’ve been practicing our zone offense and Piper just lit it up today,” said Levine (seven points).
“We weren’t active (defensively),” Saunders said. “We’ve been playing a 2-3 all year. Friday against Old Orchard Beach, we were moving with the flight of the ball and tonight we were watching the ball.”
The Raiders whittled the lead down to eight by the end of the quarter, but the Knights quickly extended it to 17 on Piper’s fourth trey of the half. Fryeburg closed to within 10 by halftime with a 7-0 run to end the quarter, capped by a Gotzler 3-pointer.
Fryeburg picked up the intensity in the second half, particularly on the defensive end, where it extended to full-court pressure to force a number of turnovers and hold Poland to 2-for-7 shooting. But the Raiders fared even worse from the floor (2-for-8) and, by the end of the quarter, had only chopped two points off the lead.
Poland’s cold shooting continued into the fourth quarter, and Fryeburg took advantage by pulling within a point on a Steinbuck layup with 1:48 left. A strong drive by Alex Smith widened the gap to three, but Steinbuck struck again, this time on a putback, to make it a one-point game with just under a minute left.
The Knights successfully held the ball on their next possession until Purington was fouled with 9.9 seconds left. The senior guard missed the first, then after a timeout, missed the second off the front of the rim. But Smith, the only Poland player positioned at the lane with four Raiders, snagged the rebound. Fouled immediately, Smith drained both free throws with 6.7 seconds left for the final margin.
Fryeburg had one more chance, but Gotzler’s 3-point attempt was no good as the buzzer sounded.
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