WELLS — The challenges for the Spruce Mountain boys basketball team started early, pretty much the moment it first took the floor.

The Phoenix were 0-2 following losses to Mt. Abram and Hall-Dale and scuffling to start a season of high expectations. There were concerns. Coach Scott Bessey heard them.

“Everyone was panicking a little bit, or going ‘Whoa, is Spruce not that good?'” Bessey said. “I knew what was going on. I knew we weren’t in shape yet.”

It’s a different story now. After a 66-49 victory Friday over Wells, the Phoenix are 7-2, sitting near the top of Class C South, and looking like a team with Gold Ball aspirations.

“It was just a turning point. We all turned around and started clicking,” senior Austin Armandi said. “It’s all in the legs, really. We’re so much faster as a team now.”

Those legs were running on empty to start the season. Four of the team’s opening night starters — Armandi, Levi Richards, Owen Kelvey and Dylan Jewett — were on the football team that reached the eight-man Large School football championship game. They missed the first week of basketball practices, and it showed. Spruce Mountain’s typically frantic, pestering defense lagged behind. Open shots didn’t drop.

With senior forward Cai Dougher (14 points against Wells) also out for the first five games, the Phoenix looked like a shell of themselves.

“Anyone that’s played both (football and basketball), it’s a completely different conditioning regimen,” Bessey said. “And it takes a while.”

The third game was a 67-33 victory over Traip Academy, and the pace and intensity came back. Dougher returned midway through the season, giving the Phoenix their best rebounder and a double-double threat back in the lineup.

Friday’s victory over the Warriors was another step in the right direction. Spruce defended fiercely and turned Wells over but also connected on the other end, knocking down nine 3-pointers, including six in the first half as it built a 39-24 lead.

“We knew we just needed to get back to where we were,” said junior Caden Frazier, who scored 13 points. “We knew we weren’t close to that at all. I feel like we’re trending there, slowly. But we’re getting there.”

The Phoenix graduated leading scorer Jace Bessey, but with everyone else back, hopes have been higher than ever.

“We knew we could be good no matter what,” Armandi said. “The expectations for this season are the Gold Ball, honestly.”

This year, the outlook is brighter. In recent years, Spruce Mountain thrived during the regular season, only to run into bigger and more tested schools in the B South tournament. The Phoenix went 49-18 over the last four seasons, but only 1-4 in playoff games.

Now in Class C, Spruce Mountain has gone from one of the smallest schools to one of the biggest. Many of the top threats, including Maranacook and Hall-Dale, are its Mountain Valley Conference rivals, rather than top teams from the larger Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference or Western Maine Conference.

That changes the outlook, Bessey said.

“Of course it does. We know, to make a run in Augusta, we’re going to face opponents that we’re going to play,” he said. “We may get matched up with Sacopee or Waynflete or some team that’s not on our regular-season schedule, but I don’t have to worry about Medomak Valley, I don’t have to worry about York. … We spent 14 years (in) the bottom four in B South, sizewise.”

The Phoenix will also be playing roughly 35 miles closer to their home fans. Once tournament time comes, they’re confident they’ll have a show for them.

“It’s really great for us,” Frazier said. “We’ve seen all the teams, and we know we can compete with them. … We know how far we can go, and how well we can do.”