DIXFIELD — High school coaches talk about team effort so much that the phrase can sometimes seem trite. But Dirigo showed Friday night why it is such a popular expression.

Four Cougars scored in double figures and three of them teamed up to frustrate the Mountain Valley Conference’s leading scorer at the defensive end in a 73-36 dismantling of Hall-Dale in Defoe Gymnasium.

The game was a matchup of the second and third-ranked teams in Western Class C going into the game, but it was never really that close. Dirigo (14-2) never trailed and led by five after one quarter, 11 after two and 17 after three. Hall-Dale (10-6) managed just 13 points in the second half.

“We played a full game tonight,” Dirigo coach Dave Gerrish said. 

Nic Crutchfield and Tyler Chiasson led four Cougar scorers in double figures with 14 points and eight rebounds apiece. Kyle Hutchinson and Tyler Gates added 11 points each and Cliff Turner and Spencer Ross supplied the firepower off the bench with nine and eight points, respectively.

“Everybody was shooting tonight,” Chiasson said. “It seemed like everybody was scoring. That’s how you win a championship.”

Balance was not Hall-Dale’s forte. Ryan Leach, the MVC’s leading scorer (23 points per game) scored 20 of the Bulldogs’ 36 points, but he had to work for everything he got. A trio of Cougars, Gates, Ross and Eric Bolduc, limited the senior guard to 6-for-18 shooting from the floor.

“Every one of them worked their tail off,” Gerrish said. “They got in the passing lane, picked him up at three-quarter court, tried not to let him catch it. To his credit, he worked the whole game.”

“It didn’t seem like any of their other guys wanted to shoot it,” Chiasson said. “It was just give it to Leach and have him take the shot, so we did a lot of help side if he ever tried to penetrate.”

Gates and Ross combined to deny Leach his first field goal until the buzzer at the end of the first quarter, which Leach beat by banking in a 3-pointer to pull the Bulldogs within 15-10.

Ross described his strategy for defending Leach.

“Stay on him, no help side at all, just keying on him. Don’t let him shoot and just frustrate him,” he said. “Wherever he went, I went.”

Ross, Turner and Cody St. Germain (nine rebounds) provided the spark off the bench as the Cougars began to pull away in the second quarter. Turner drilled a pair of 3-pointers to put the lead into double digits for good at 25-15 midway through the period. That set off a 12-3 run also highlighted by a Chiasson trey and a Crutchfield hoop off a Hutchinson pass.

Dirigo stretched Hall-Dale’s 1-2-2 zone thin by shooting 5-for-11 from 3-point land in the first half and would have enjoyed a 14-point lead at intermission had Leach not beaten the buzzer with a 3-pointer yet again to make it 34-23.

The Cougars missed their first seven shots of the third quarter yet still managed to add onto their cushion thanks in part to eight Hall-Dale turnovers in the period. With a three-inch height advantage on Ross, Leach tried posting up his defender in the low post but found little success. His hoop with 2:40 left in the period made it 38-28, but that was as close as Hall-Dale would get.

Chiasson sliced through the middle of Hall-Dale’s zone for the Cougars’ first field goal of the period with 1:59 remaining, and Gates followed with three free throws and a jumper that made it 45-28 heading into the fourth quarter. Dirigo opened the fourth with an 18-4 run to put the game away.