AUBURN — Edward Little girls basketball coach Frank Perry abides by the philosophy that if the opposing team only scores one point, all it takes is two points to win.

Edward Little started playing a 3-2 matchup zone defense this season, their first under Perry, and the players are settling into the once unfamiliar style more and more.

Perry said the defense is “hard to play, and hard to play against if you’re running it well.” That was the case Monday, when Edward Little prevailed 75-16 over Lewiston. The Red Eddies have won five straight games.

“It’s a really tough defense to run,” Perry said. “So, the girls are really getting it. Kids like Violet (Vincent) and Rachel (Penny) communicating in the back line is such a key point. (If) they don’t, the defense falls apart pretty fast. Those two are such a huge piece of that.”

Vincent, who grabbed six rebounds Monday, has been an unsung but vital component to Edward Little’s (8-3) success this season, grabbing loose balls, kickstarting transitions and running the defense.

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“She did a lot of dirty work today rebounding, and she’s just a really good defender, very smart in that back side of our defense, we really rely on her a lot more,” Perry said. “She doesn’t get as much of the notoriety that you would hope to get as a player.”

With a solid defense in place, Perry said everyone has “the green light,” to shoot the ball on the other end. On Monday, Penny made nine 3-pointers to set the Edward Little girls program record for the most 3s in a game, breaking her own mark of eight, which she set as a sophomore.

Penny, a senior, set the girls team’s record for most career 3s last week when she made her 154th. Next up is the EL record for most 3-pointers in a game, which is 12 by Jon Wallingford in a 99-51 win at Lewiston in 1999.

Penny finished with a game-high 27 points. Fellow senior Layla Facchiano scored 25, and freshman Elizabeth Galway finished with 12 points, eight rebounds and three blocks.

“My favorite block was my second one, when I just sent it, and it felt really good,” Galway said.

Charlotte Ranger, another freshman, disrupted Lewiston’s offensive, which has become her role. She came off the bench and logged six points, two rebounds and a steal.

“I definitely use my speed as an advantage on defense, because I’m a long person — that’s what people say a lot,” Ranger said. “So I just use my long arms (to steal).”

Bailey Tardiff-Mockler led Lewiston (1-10) with seven points. Coach Sam Morin said the Blue Devils learned from Monday’s game that they have a lot to improve upon.

“We learned that to be as competitive as EL, as a team, we have a long way to go,” Morin said. “It’s very difficult to compete against. Doesn’t matter if it’s Edward Little or Oxford Hills at the top of the top, we’re not learning from our mistakes. We threw a lot of turnovers tonight, did a lot of internal things we need to work on. We’ll do our best to learn from this.”

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