CUMBERLAND — The Gray-New Gloucester girls’ basketball started the third quarter pretty strong Tuesday night, but Greely finished it even stronger.

After the Patriots rallied to get within three points, the Rangers answered with a run of their own that finished off G-NG in a 50-29 win.

The Patriots got within 24-21 with 4:41 left in the third but only scored two more field goals the rest of the game. The Rangers scored 11 straight to break the lead open in the third and opened the fourth with a 10-2 run.

“We need to be able to rise to the challenge,” said G-NG coach Chris Aube. “Come tournament time, if someone knocks you in the mouth, you’ve got to be able to recover. We didn’t do that tonight.”

Abby Young led Greely (15-2) with 17 while Karlee Biskup and Megan Grondin each added 11. Nicole Faietta added nine for the Rangers, ranked third in Western B. Laura Getchell had a fine effort for the Patriots (11-6) with eight points. Alicia Valente added six.

G-NG was down by as many as 10 in the first half but made a charge to open the third. A three-point play by Getchell and a rebound by Kassie Wilson had made it 21-14 to end the half. Then another Wilson basket and a Getchell hoop made it 21-18 with 6:36 left. Young hit a 3-pointer to double the lead, but Getchell produced another three-point play on a drive through the lane to make it 24-21 with 4:41 left.

“We were right back in it, and we had a breakaway layup, and they called something,” said Aube, whose club was ranked seventh in Western B. “I don’t know what it was as physical as this game was. That would have cut it to one.”

Instead, Greely got a 3-pointer from Faietta and another from Biskup to make it 30-21. After a Chelsea Bridges basket, Megan Grondin scored on a three-point play on a slash to the hoop. That made it 35-21.

“We just turned the ball over a couple times,” said Greely coach Billy Goodman of the first few minutes of the third.” We just wanted them to calm down and try to get a good shot, which we did.”

G-NG got a basket by Alena Grant with 1:11 left in the third but didn’t score a field goal again until late in the fourth on a Valente basket. Greely outscored them 12-2 in between.

“We just had to tighten up on defense a little bit,” said Goodman. “I wanted the girls to focus. They had missed some assignments. Then we just wanted to get good shots. That’s what I was looking for when I called a timeout.”

It was the lowest point total for the Patriots since being held to 11 by York in the second game of the season.

“The type of game we have to play against them doesn’t lead to us scoring a lot of points,” said Aube. “Once they got up by 10 or so, it changed the way we had to do things.”

After a lengthy and emotional Senior Night ceremony, the Rangers were able to focus immediately and quickly opened a 10-5 lead in the opening quarter. A 7-2 spurt to start the second had the lead up to 10.

“They came out well, which I was very happy with,” said Goodman. “We were a wreck before the game.”

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