FARMINGTON — It wasn’t the best of first halves Friday night.

The Mt. Blue girls’ basketball team knew that. The Cougars also knew they could do something about it.

With a seasoned and experienced group, Mt. Blue wasn’t showing panic when it started the second half. The Cougars were showing the poise they had lacked in the first half.

“I was very confident,” said Mt. Blue coach Tom Philbrick. “That’s what I told them at halftime. They’ve been there. They’ve done this. We usually make a game out of it.”

Down by as many as 12 in the first half, the Cougars wiped away the eight-point deficit at halftime and finished strong for a 55-48 win over Skowhegan in their brand new gym.

“We just knew we needed to pull it out, and we needed to step the intensity up,” said junior Miranda Nicely. “So we did. We also had to settle down at the same time, and that’s when our shots started to fall.”

Nicely led the Cougars with 17 points and 11 rebounds while Gabby Foy added 16. The two of them combined for 23 of Mt. Blue’s 34 points in the second half. Both led the charge as the Cougars looked more composed and assertive than in the first half.

“We could tell we were gelling and the momentum shifted,” said Nicely. “It shifted back and forth a couple times, but we knew it needed to end with momentum on our side.”

Skowhegan got 15 from Morgan Buker and 11 from Chelsey Whittemore.

“They made shots and we didn’t,” said Skowhegan coach Heath Cowan, whose team beat the Cougars in a thrilling Eastern A quarterfinal last year. “It’s going to come down to that.”

Down 27-19 at the half, Mt. Blue quickly closed the gap and took the lead with nine straight points in the third. After a Jayce Mullen jumper, Foy scored on a fastbreak. Amy Hilton hit a 3 and Conlogue followed with her own to put the Cougars up 31-28.

The momentum went back-and-forth the rest of the quarter but two free throws from Nicely and a 3 from Foy put the Cougars up 40-38 after three quarters.

“We had to get on the boards and stop the two shots and three shots,” said Philbrick. “I thought they did that in the second half. We limited them to one shot. We got the rebounds. We started getting more aggressive and moved it up the court.”

The Cougars opened the lead up to nine early in the fourth. After a Foy 3 and a Nicely three-point play made it 46-38, a Nicely rebound made it 48-39 with 6:04 left. Skowhegan got within five three times but couldn’t close the gap. Though Mt. Blue missed some free throws and took some bad fouls, the Cougars were able to hold on.

Mullen hit some key free throws and had a key defensive board while Conlogue and Addie Brinkman had some late rebounds on the defensive end.

“We didn’t clean the boards up,” said Cowan, who had two girls foul out down the stretch. “We’ve got to rebound the basketball. We have to make our free throws too. We missed a bunch of free throws down the stretch. We had a couple of 3’s in the air that could have made it a one possession game with under a minute. It was a good test.”

Mt. Blue started the game missing its first 10 shots, three of which were blocked. The Cougars also had 13 turnovers in the first half while also giving the Indians 16 free throws. Skowhegan made 10 of them.

While Mt. Blue looked tentative, the Indians were aggressive. Five straight points led to a quick lead in the first. Then a pair of 7-0 runs extended the lead to as many as 24-12 with 3:35 left in the half.

“We were tight,” said Philbrick. “We had the looks. We had our shots. We just didn’t drop them.”

The Cougars were a stronger and more confident team in the second half. Mt. Blue played better defense, executed well on offense and pushed the ball with confidence.

“First game of the season, you don’t know how it’s going to go,” said Nicely. “We were confident, but our shots were just too hard because of the nerves.”

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