DIXFIELD – The Dirigo girls’ basketball team have discovered the importance of staying composed down the stretch. The Cougars finished the deal Monday in a Mountain Valley Conference game.

Ricki Sinclair scored four points in the fourth quarter, including a pair of free throws with 16.6 seconds left to lift the Cougars to a 32-31 victory over Winthrop.

The game was a battle of wills. Both teams struggled on offense – Winthrop shot 31 percent and Dirigo shot 30 percent.

Dirigo (11-4) took a 26-21 lead on a jumper by Jane Hebert (12 points, six rebounds) and a pair of free throws by Katrina Pulk (eight points) with five minutes left, but the flow of the game then changed.

Winthrop guard Erika Rice drained a 3-pointer to cut the deficit.

“We have some good guards, and I don’t feel other teams can cover them,” Dirigo coach Reggie Weston said. “They need to drive the lane and make the right decisions. We tried to spread the floor down the stretch, but there was a lid on the basket.”

Winthrop trailed by one point, following a pair of baskets by Lindsay Gordon (12 points, nine rebounds), with 24.7 left to play. Dirigo turned the ball over, but had a foul to give and it prevented Winthrop from setting up for a final shot.

Winthrop (9-5) found success after switching from a 1-3-1 zone to a man-to-man. The Ramblers hurt themselves by making three of 15 free throws in the game.

“The girls did what we wanted down the stretch,” Winthrop coach Ray Convery, who graduated from Dixfield. “The ball was in the right places, but our shots (seven of 13) wouldn’t fall. We had identified the Dirigo shooters and made the others beat us.”

Dirigo turned the ball over twice through three quarters, but committed seven turnovers in the fourth quarter. A saving grace was making seven-of-nine free throws – four of five in the fourth quarter.

Kristen Harvey had four steals and the defensive pressure with Tricia Turner, Morgan Hutchins, Pulk and Sinclair made a difference.

Winthrop point guard Nicki Scott ran the show, but starter Kelsey Ouellette was sick and couldn’t play.

“We were just not finishing things,” Pulk said, referring to the slow first half when Dirigo led 13-11. “That’s been a problem our last three games.”

Dirigo took a 22-16 lead on back-to-back 3-pointers by Hebert and Turner, after three quarters.

“We need to stay composed,” Sinclair said. “In the fourth quarter, Winthrop had switched defenses and we are also trying a new defense.”