The Cougars have earned every fist bump, high five and howl of triumph lately.

Riley Robinson scored nine of his game-high 21 points while saddled with four fouls in the fourth quarter Monday night, rallying Dirigo from an eight-point deficit to a 55-49 MVC victory over Winthrop.

Clay Swett added 20 points for Dirigo (11-2), which previously came from behind to beat Boothbay at home and win at Madison in the past 11 days. Robinson, the junior 1,000-point scorer who recently moved to point guard, added seven rebounds and four assists.

“We know we’re in the best condition of any team in the conference. Fourth quarter is when we turn it on,” Robinson said. “When I went out with those four fouls, everyone picked it up. It was a great team win.”

Taylor Morang scored 11 points to lead Winthrop (11-2), which won by 14 in the teams’ previous meeting Dec. 27 at Augusta Civic Center. Dakota Carter and Anthony Owens each added eight points. Matt Sekerak supplied seven points and five assists.

After trailing by double digits midway through the second quarter, the Ramblers rattled off a 28-10 run, capped by Carter’s two free throws that coincided with Robinson’s fourth foul and made it 46-38 with 6:55 remaining.

Winthrop went the final 11:41 without a field goal, culminating with an 0-for-9 performance with five turnovers in the fourth quarter.

“You’ve got to give them credit. They were better in the fourth when they had to be,” Winthrop coach Todd MacArthur said. “Their defense, they turned the intensity up. They got stops when they needed to. We didn’t execute at the end. As a veteran team, I expect us to do that.”

Fueled by a capacity crowd that stood and hollered to exhort its defense on every fourth-quarter Winthrop possession, Dirigo benefited from two Kaine Hutchins steals, a Tyler Frost theft plus numerous collisions in hard-nosed pursuit of the ball, and a Swett rejection.

Steadily and efficiently, the offense fed off it, too. Gavin Arsenault, who also had six steals in the game, drove the baseline for two on the Cougars’ first possession without Robinson. Swett’s backdoor cut converted a feed from Frost to get Dirigo within four.

“Some people say that we only have a couple of scorers, but Riley comes out, we’re down (eight), and by the time he comes back in it’s a two-point game,” Dirigo coach Travis Magnusson said. “Riley played a great game all game, but that shows how good we are that we have other guys that can step up and dominate the game as well.”

Owens broke the spell by making one free throw, but Frost found Swett again to start a 3-point play and make it 47-45. Robinson then returned, hitting two free throws to start his finishing kick and tie it with 3:38 to go.

“It shows the toughness we have as a team. We’ve been a couple times in the fourth quarter. We play with a lot of heart,” Swett said. “It comes down to heart and toughness. When you play that hard with the energy and enthusiasm we played with the whole game, it’s hard to play against.”

Robinson corralled Carter’s missed layup to ignite Dirigo’s go-ahead possession, then capped it with a pull-up jumper from 12 feet. Hutchins’ steal led to another pair at the line for Robinson and a 51-47 edge.

It was a stunning reversal from a third quarter in which the Cougars shot 2-for-14. Owens and Carter combined for 11 points, and Winthrop went 9-for-9 from the line to take apparent command.

“This team, they’re becoming special. We just find a way,” Magnusson said. “They’re really, really tough, and they’ve got a lot of heart. That’s a big thing for us. Going into the fourth quarter, we know now if it’s close, we feel really good.”

As was the case the first time against Winthrop, Dirigo jumped out quickly. Robinson and Arsenault nailed 3-pointers in the first minute.

Swett’s first two buckets, piggybacked by another Robinson trey, inflated the advantage to 13-4. But the Ramblers were plenty warm themselves, hitting 5-of-8. That included six points from Ben Allen, whose marksmanship turned the tide in the holiday meeting.

This time, Dirigo shut him out for the remainder of the game, mixing defenses to conserve energy for its man-to-man blanket coverage in the fourth.

“We’re resilient. We know we’re a team of highs and lows. They usually stick together and battle back,” MacArthur said. “Third quarter we played great defense. That kind of got us back into the game.”

Hutchins’ 3-pointer from the left corner warded off Winthrop’s initial 8-0 surge and protected Dirigo’s 31-26 halftime lead.

The Ramblers scored the first 10 points out of the locker room, culminating with Owens’ 3-point play and Jacob Hickey’s bomb from beyond the arc.

“We knew it was going to be a game of runs. We really buckled down in the fourth quarter, let up five points. We just turn it up another notch,” Robinson said. “We’ve been in a tough four-game stretch, and we’ve been able to power through it. They’re a very good team, but we’re a totally different team since the first time we played. We’ve been really focusing on conditioning, as you can tell in the fourth quarter.”

koakes@sunjournal.com

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