AUBURN — Scarborough was short-handed and therefore wanted to get off to a good start Tuesday against Edward Little.

The Red Storm did, and their combination of size and shooting was too much for the Red Eddies in a 56-44 Class AA boys basketball road victory.

“We talked together in the locker room, ‘We need to come out together and with energy and not come out with a slow start,’ and we definitely did that,” Scarborough sophomore Spencer Booth said. “We went up — I think we were up like 16 points at one point. Just coming out with a lot of energy and just getting it done and being in that mindset.”

Booth, a 6-foot-9 sophomore, led the way with 21 points and 12 rebounds. Liam Garriepy and Liam Jefferds each contributed 14 points for the Red Storm, who were without starting point guard Carter Blanche, and starter Nate Glidden played but was hampered by sickness.

The Red Storm (8-2), ranked fourth in the Varsity Maine boys basketball poll, also were coming off a difficult 58-51 loss to Gorham on Saturday, only their second loss of the season — with both setbacks against teams that entered Tuesday undefeated (Gorham lost to Cheverus 51-37 in Portland).

“We lost a tough game at Gorham with about two minutes to go on Saturday, and so I wanted to see how this group responded,” Scarborough coach Phil Conley said. “But I’m very pleased with our performance. We have great senior leadership, and they responded with a victory today against a very good team, very well-coached team.”

Any looming dejection from Saturday’s loss was quickly erased Tuesday, as Scarborough scored six points before Edward Little (3-7) advanced the ball to its offensive end of the court.

Soon after the Red Storm won the opening tipoff, Garriepy hit a 3-pointer. Then Scarborough’s press defense forced a turnover, which led to a 3 by Jefferds.

The Red Storm rarely missed in the opening quarter, making four 3-pointers and five other field goals to take a 22-12 lead into the second quarter. Jefferds (eight points), Garriepy and Booth (seven points each) scored all of Scarborough’s points.

“They’re a really good team. Really good team,” Edward Little coach Mike Adams said. “And probably, when you look at all the pieces, probably the most complete team, you know, that we’ve played so far, maybe in the state, in terms of bigs and guards and shooting and everything else that they do.”

In between the first and second quarters, Conley found sophomore guard E.J. Herrick on the bench and excitedly told him how well he was playing. Herrick spent more time on the court Tuesday due to Blanche’s absence.

“He’s played a lot of his minutes this year with the JV,” Conley said of Herrick, “and came in off the bench and … just did a great job, taking care of the ball, rebounding, playing good, solid defense.”

The Red Storm continued their offensive dominance early in the second period and built their lead up to 31-15 with five minutes to play in the half.

The Red Eddies held Scarborough scoreless over the final five minutes while scoring the final eight points of the second quarter, including a step-back 3-pointer by Eli St. Laurent that cut Edward Little’s deficit to 31-22 heading into intermission.

“We’re a team that, you know, we’re not good enough … to be in situations where we get down early in the game,” Adams said. “But we said a couple of times before halftime, ‘Hey, let’s get it down to 10, then we’ll be OK.’ We did.”

Diing Maiwen drove to the hoop for a basket early in the second half to get the Red Eddies within seven points, but Scarborough scored the next eight points, and outscored Edward Little 10-4 in the third quarter to end the period with a 41-26 lead.

“Basically, at halftime, we talked about, we need do a better job at taking care of the basketball, and we need to defend, obviously, Marshal Adams,” Conley said. “And so we just talked about doing the little things, getting back to the basics: standing in our stance on defense, hand high, and then rebounding, boxing out and rebounding — because rebounding wins basketball games, whether it’s on the offensive end or the defensive end, that wins basketball games.”

Booth grabbed most of his 12 rebounds after halftime, and 6-foot-6 senior Brayden Couture pulled down most of his seven boards in the second half.

“I thought Brayden Couture, our big off the bench, did a really good job, logged a lot of minutes for us, and he’s getting better and better each and every game,” Conley said.

Maiwen made 12 rebounds for Edward Little to go along with his team-high 19 points.

“We’ve always said that … whether we have guards or bigs, is that the paint wins, and they won the paint tonight, so that’s why they were able to win the game,” Mike Adams said.

The Red Eddies continued to battle. Scarborough again built a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter, but Marshal Adams hit four 3-pointers and Maiwen scored six points in the period to get Edward Little within 10 points, 54-44, with about a minute and a half left.

“I was proud of our kids throughout for their effort, for how hard they worked and for executing things that we were trying to do,” Mike Adams said.

Marshal Adams finished with 16 points for the Eddies.

SIZE OF THE STORM

After hitting four 3-pointers in the opening quarter, the Red Storm’s only other trey came in the fourth quarter — Jefferds’ third of the game. Part of the decline came from cooling off and part of it came from sending the ball into the post to Booth, Couture and Garriepy, a 6-foot-5 forward.

“For the past couple of games, it’s kind of been a theme that our shots have been (going) in in the beginning of the game, especially 3-pointers, and we sort of tend to cool down towards the second quarter,” Booth said. “But it’s definitely important that we get those inside buckets, too … because not every game are our 3s going to be hitting.”

Maiwen is the only tall Edward Little player in the rotation, so the Red Eddies were playing with a significant size disadvantage.

“I hadn’t seen Liam … post up as much as he did against us, but part of that is probably we had some smaller guys on him. So I told the boys afterwards, that’s 100 percent on me that I didn’t have them prepared better to be able to defend that situation,” Mike Adams said. “But the truth of the matter is, you know, our guards aren’t small, but we don’t have a second big to go up against somebody who’s 6-4, 6-5.

“And in the game of basketball today, most players don’t use, most coaches don’t use the post, but Phil’s an old-school coach. In the new-school world, he does a lot of really good things, and he uses the post.”

Making Scarborough even more difficult to defend is that Booth and Garriepy can also space the floor with outside shooting — each made a 3-pointer Tuesday — as well as drive the hoop.

Despite their limited height, Mike Adams said that the Red Eddies should be able to compete with any team in Class AA, and he points out past teams that were smaller that did so.

“And the difference is … they found each other better, they worked for each other,” Adams said. “And our players, we’re not there yet.”

Adams said the Eddies are a work in progress, and likely will be for much of the regular season, but he is confident that they can reach that point.

“It’s important that we value the ball a little bit more, and get good looks every single time and look for each other,” Adams said. “But I love this team. I really do. It’s a fun group. They work hard. You know, we met in the locker room, and I asked them if they had any questions, and the first question was, ‘What time’s practice?’

“They know that we can be a good team, and we are a good team. The record doesn’t show we’re a good team, but we are a good team.”

Edward Little hosts Cheverus (9-2), the No. 3 team in the Varsity Maine poll, on Friday. Scarborough also is at home Friday, hosting Sanford (5-3).

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