SOUTH PARIS – The Oxford Hills Vikings have a nice insurance policy if their top scorer, Matt McDonnell, gets off to a slow start or has a tough shooting night.

The Vikings used that insurance policy, Leif Kothe, until it was time for McDonnell to cash in and held off a pesky Leavitt team, 76-62, Tuesday night.

Kothe scored 18 of his 23 points in the first half and McDonnell scored 22 of his game-high 26 in the second half as the Vikings (2-0) pulled away late.

“(McDonnell) took over the game in the second half,” said Vikings coach Scott Graffam. “He hit the front of the rim the whole first half and then we told him at halftime: You gotta get after it a little bit.’ He did, and that was the turning point in that game.”

Jon Pirrucello led the Hornets (1-1) with 18 points, while Dan Berry added 14 and Cameron Angell 13. Thomas Kothe added 17 points for the Vikings.

Leavitt had great success pounding the ball inside to Pirrucello for most of the night but could never quite get over the hump. Pirrucello’s last field goal pulled the Hornets within 42-38 with 2:50 left in the third quarter. But Oxford Hills, led by two treys from McDonnell and another by Josh Powell, went on an 11-2 run to close the quarter.

Unable to get the ball inside to Pirrucello for most of the fourth quarter, the Hornets fell as many as 19 points back before making one last charge on 3-pointers by Angell, Berry and Matt Nash to get within nine with just over two minutes left. Thomas Kothe responded with back-to-back buckets, though, to put the game away.

“They started doubling and tripling (Pirrucello) and we weren’t able to get a good entry pass into him,” Leavitt coach Mike Remillard said. “We started to swing it from wing to wing and look for some way to get it inside, try to collapse the middle and then kick it out to use our 3-shooters on the wing, and we got some good looks.”

“I think he was worn out,” Graffam said of Pirrucello. “We had someone (mainly Corey Saunders and Jake Cash) leaning on him the whole time. We really didn’t have an answer for him, but it got to the point where we could get in the passing lane a little bit.”

The Hornets were the ones getting into the passing lanes early on, forcing a number of turnovers to keep the game close, 21-15 at the end of the first quarter despite 13 points in the period by Leif Kothe. The Vikings led by as much as 10 in the second quarter, but Leavitt hung around and trailed by seven at the half.

“We gave them all they could handle tonight,” Remillard said. “Their house, their crowd, it really gave them some lifts. When you play these guys, you just have to maintain your focus and know what you’re doing and be patient with it for 32 minutes. If you have a lapse, they’ll make that six-to-eight point run and before you know it, you’re down by 15.”