POLAND – A sprained ankle prevented Olivia Ryan from taking the court the first time her Gray-New Gloucester High School girls’ basketball team encountered Route 26 rival Poland Regional High School this winter.
That’s no problem, because the 6-foot junior center squeezed an entire home-and-home series into three-and-a-half quarters at Pierce Gymnasium on Tuesday night. Ryan rolled up a career-high 25 points, 17 rebounds and four steals to propel the Patriots to a 65-37 Western Maine Conference rout and a season sweep of the Knights.
Gray-NG (9-4) squeaked out a 42-36 home win over Poland a month ago, but the Patriots look drastically different with Ryan scoring at will on the blocks and in transition. She’s now the anchor of a starting lineup exclusively comprised of underclassmen, with four players standing 5-foot-8 or taller.
“She’s been injured and is just starting to come on,” Gray-NG coach Harvey Moynihan said of Ryan. “We (recently) went to that bigger lineup, and it makes us tough to defend. Last year, we played our best basketball in February, and we want to do the same thing this year.”
Chelsea Durgin added 14 points and eight rebounds for the Patriots, who corralled two dozen offensive boards at Poland’s expense.
Ana Danieli (four points, nine rebounds) and Jen Farynaz (five points, seven rebounds, five assists) also showed why the Patriots raced to a 5-0 start this winter with Ryan out of commission.
“I think we’ve turned the corner,” Ryan said. “From here on out, it’s only going to get better.”
Poland led 9-8 as late as the final minute of the first quarter, but inside hoops by Durgin and Ryan put the Patriots on top by three at the buzzer. Then G-NG ran and hid, enjoying a double-digit run of unanswered points in each of the next three quarters.
Paige Piper finished with 12 points and two of Poland’s five 3-pointers. Mallory Huskins added eight points, while Kathryn Hall countered Gray-NG’s low-post prowess with seven rebounds and six blocked shots. But the Knights (3-10) couldn’t overcome 25 turnovers.
After watching his team go scoreless over the final 4:48 of the first half to trail 30-15 at the break, Poland coach Barry Hackett elected to spend halftime in the gym and let his captains do the talking in the locker room.
“There wasn’t much I could say,” Hackett explained. “Gray took it to us. We didn’t play with intensity. They outplayed us and outrebounded us.”
While Gray-NG has its eye on one of the top four seeds in the Western Class B tournament next month in Portland, Poland still has the opportunity to pay its first-ever visit to the postseason, open tournament era excluded.
Although the Knights might hold onto the 10th and final qualifying spot even if they don’t win another game, Hackett hopes for an insurance victory or two that would erase any doubt.
“It looks like there are three levels of teams, and we’re sort of the last team in that middle group,” Hackett said. “But we need to play a lot better.”
Comments are no longer available on this story