WALES – Maine Central Institute and Oak Hill each have three seniors and seven juniors on their respective rosters, but the difference in experience and offensive execution between the KVAC rivals is vast.

MCI stayed patient against Oak Hill’s zone defense and hurried the Raiders into 34 turnovers with its own man-to-man set to pick up a convincing 60-33 win Friday night.

The Huskies’ Amanda Asaro led all scorers with 15 points, but it was junior Jenna Lorentsen who controlled the paint, finishing with 14 points and 11 rebounds.

“Jenna is really, really a solid player,” MCI coach Jason Allen said. “She’s probably our best offensive weapon, and that’s one of the reasons you see teams playing zone against us.”

Allen preached patience against the zone, and the Huskies (5-1) showed they were paying attention on their opening possession, burning nearly a minute-and-a-half off the clock before taking an open jumper. The shot didn’t fall, and MCI didn’t break the scoreless tie until midway through the quarter. But they eventually established Lorentsen inside.

“We really haven’t handled zones very well. Teams are on to us, I guess,” Allen said. “We don’t really have a great deal of an outside shooting threat. The one thing I thought we did well early on was we were very patient and really worked to get something out of our offense.”

The Raiders (1-4) did get something out of their offense, but only when they held onto the ball. Ambyr Provost (team-high nine points, seven rebounds and three steals) scored off a steal to tie the game for the final time at 4-4.

But 10 first-quarter turnovers and some strong work on the offensive boards by Lorentsen gave the Huskies twice as many scoring chances as their hosts. “They’re just a team that is young, doesn’t have enough court experience, and needs to get that, because they played scared,” said Oak Hill coach Dan Sabine, who starts three sophomores and two juniors.

“We’re fairly athletic, and that’s kind of our saving grace so far against teams that have played zone against us,” Allen said. “We’ve tried to extend the floor, pressure them a little bit and make them give us extra possessions.”

The Huskies attempted 27 shots to the Raiders’ 14 in the first half. Kristi Judkins (11 points, three 3-pointers) provided an outside shooting threat for the Huskies, and her second bomb made it 22-8 late in the second quarter.

Samantha Wark scored back-to-back hoops to bring the Raiders within 10 going into intermission, but MCI pulled away in the third quarter by holding Oak Hill to 1-for-11 shooting from the field.

“They need to come up with some offensive production and then everything else will come up fine,” Sabine said. “They got behind, and they’ve been there before and they just kind of folded.”

Ashley Delaney had seven points and 10 rebounds for the Raiders, while Emily Sabine added four points and nine boards.

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