TURNER – His teams are legend for their grind-it-out style, but Bangor coach Roger Reed was concerned that his Rams might have to grind even harder to get a win over Leavitt in a Little East/KVAC crossover game Friday night.
“I was a little worried,” Reed said. “We got hung up on the highway for an hour-and-a-half. I was worried about our legs. We had to urge our troops on a little harder tonight.”
Reed’s troops responded by dominating the final three quarters and running away with a 73-40 win.
Aaron Gallant led all scorers with 25 points and Mark Socoby added 15 points and 11 rebounds as the Rams (12-1) overcame their shooting woes with some hard work on the offensive glass and at the defensive end.
“Our scouting reports told us you want to deny dribble penetration, which I thought we did for the most part pretty well,” Leavitt coach Mike Remillard said. “You want to recognize their shooters and you want to get out and run because they really don’t want to run.”
The Hornets looked like they’d get plenty of opportunities to up the tempo because Bangor began the game missing 10 of its first 11 shots. Cameron Angell scored six of his team-high 10 points in the first quarter to help Leavitt to a 12-11 lead after one.
“We just wanted to make sure that we cut down on their penetration off the dribble,” Reed said. “They hurt us a little bit with that early. I didn’t think we were helping across the way that we should and we just had to tweak our foot position and things like that a little bit and that cut down a lot on that.”
As a result, Bangor’s shooting woes carried over to Leavitt to begin the second quarter. The Hornets (7-6) missed their first seven shots to send the Rams on a 13-0 run to begin the quarter. The Rams weren’t much warmer, but Socoby (seven offensive rebounds) led an all-out assault on the offensive glass to get them numerous second chances. For the half, they out rebounded the Hornets, 11-3, on the offensive boards. That was largely responsible for the 37-18 advantage they had in shot attempts for the half and the 28-16 lead they took into the intermission.
The Hornets made a brief charge to start the second half, getting buckets from Angell and Jon Pirruccello to pull within seven midway through the third quarter. Bangor responded with another 13-0 run, this one to close out the quarter, and Gallant’s 3-pointer at the buzzer made it a 20-point bulge.
“Credit Bangor’s defense because their close-out speed is phenomenal,” Remillard said. “Instead of trying to get back in the game one possession at a time and one bucket at a time, we tried to get more points than that with each possession. You can’t do that when you play a team like that.”
Comments are no longer available on this story