Hard work breeds progress. That’s the message Lewiston girls’ basketball coach Mike McGraw has been preaching to his Blue Devils.

The Blue Devils are still winless, but it hasn’t been because of a lack of effort. Lewiston has been playing better this season and great strides, even though it hasn’t appeared in the win-loss column.

“I can’t be any prouder of their effort,” said McGraw. “We’ve got a long way to go. The kids know they have to work. They know what they have to do. We’ve got all season ahead of us.”

Lewiston struggled last year when it had few returning players. This year many players that competed last winter returned. That gave the Blue Devils a foundation of experience to build from. Lewiston hasn’t won a game since beating Leavitt in 2008.

“It’s a work in progress, but it’s moving in a positive direction,” said McGraw.

The team is quite young.  MacKenzie Sullivan and Emily Dixon are the only returning seniors. Juniors Emily Paione, Tori Denis, Kelsey Dumond, Erica Brochu and Alex Wilson join sophomores Jennes Talarico, Meagan Mathon and Brie Wilson from last year.

The team has improved its play and been more competitive this season but are still trying to find a level of consistency. McGraw says the team is preaching a consistent effort to start with hopes that the rest will follow.

“We need them to come every day to get better,” said McGraw. “The thing with this team is now they know the benefits of how hard they worked. In the past, they worked hard and got nothing out of it. It sort of defeated their purpose. But they’re making progress and one thing we can’t do is slide back and think we can take a day off.”

New home, new results

After four wins last year, the Mt. Blue girls’ basketball team is already halfway to matching that total.

The Cougars have started the season 2-3 and are currently in seventh in the Eastern A standings. That’s pretty exciting news for a team that’s been on the rise for a couple seasons.

“We’ve been playing together for so long and worked so hard during the summer and the fall, to see it pay off is really great,” said junior guard Amy Hilton.

The Cougars returned much of last year’s team that went 4-14 but still showed signs of being a competitive club. Mt. Blue only has one senior in Corrine Dingley, but a solid group of juniors that have seen plenty of varsity time, including Mackenzie Conlogue, Gabby Foy, Hilton, Alyssa Williams, Kayla Newill, Jaycee Mullen and Meg Hall. Add in returning sophomore Miranda Nicely and the Cougars have a returning roster ready to take a significant step.

The Cougars lost by one to Skowhegan to open the season and then beat Brewer. After losses to Bangor and Hampden, Mt. Blue earned a valuable victory over Oxford Hills. They play at 1-4 Lawrence tonight.

In addition to the growing pains of an up and coming team, the Cougars have also had to deal with a different home court. Because of renovations at the high school, Mt. Blue has been playing home games at the Mt. Blue Middle School.

“We all played at the middle school so much that it’s like a home court,” said Foy. “It’s smaller, but we’re just used to it.”

Spruced up schedule

After beating the defending Class C state champs from Hall-Dale Wednesday, the schedule doesn’t get any easier for unbeaten Spruce Mountain (5-0). The Phoenix play Dirigo twice and have Mountain Valley, Hall-Dale and Madison ahead in the coming weeks. Those teams have a combined record of 18-4. Madison and Hall-Dale and currently first and second respectively in Western C while both Dirigo and Mountain Valley are in the playoff hunt as well.

“The way the schedule worked out, I think it’s one season where by mid January, we’re going to have a pretty good idea where we’re going to be in the Heal Points,” said Spruce Mountain coach Gavin Kane.

The Phoenix, despite the unbeaten record, had been well out of the playoff spots in 12th place in Western B prior to the win over the Bulldogs.

“We knew if we could get a win against Hall-Dale that they’d be worth a bundle of Heal Points,” said Kane, whose team jumped to seventh with the victory. “It was hard to look at the Heal Points and know we’re playing a predominantly C schedule. There are teams that had one win that were four or five spots ahead of us.”

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