Winslow rallies, upsets rival Waterville

Saturday, January 21, 2006

By TRAVIS LAZARCZYK
Staff Writer

Staff photo by Jeff Pouland
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Waterville's Steve Flowers puts up a shot over Winslow's James Wood, Josh Gallagher and John Goulette (left to right) during first-half action Friday night in Waterville.

WATERVILLE -- Rivals don't care if you've won four in a row or have won only twice all season. Rivals only want to be there to dig the hole you fall in, so when you fall, you fall just a little further.

The Waterville Senior High School boys basketball team went into Friday's game against arch rival Winslow riding a four-game winning streak, while Winslow was plugging along through what no team wants to be caught in -- a rebuilding season. With a come-from-behind 56-53 overtime win, Winslow can start to see something coming together through all that remodeling, while Waterville is left to regroup and clean up the sawdust.

Winslow improved to 3-9, while Waterville saw its streak snapped and dropped to 5-7.

There were 18 lead changes and seven ties in this game, but Waterville was able to maintain a lead for most of the second half. Trailing 48-41 with four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Black Raiders mounted a stealth rally, cutting the Purple Panthers' lead to 48-47 with 2:26 left entirely at the free throw line. Waterville's Erik Maheu gave his team a two-point cushion with a free throw with 46 seconds left, but Adam Puiia tied the game at 49-49 with a running layup with seven seconds to play, sending the game to overtime. A Conner McCarthy bucket gave the Panthers a 53-52 lead with 37 seconds left in the extra period, but Kevin Byrne and Puiia each hit a pair of free throws for the Black Raiders.

"I take my time on the foul line and I stick 'em," said Puiia, who was 8 of 9 at the line and scored 11 of his game-high 17 points in the second half.

Waterville's Nate Lancaster was called for charging with eight seconds left, and McCarthy's off balance three at the buzzer went off the side of the rim.

"We didn't have a sense of panic. We could have packed it in," WInslow head coach Scott Wood said. "With us being patient on offense, we got good looks."

"It's tough. We've been in so many overtime games, you'd think we'd have an edge," McCarthy said. "We like to pride ourselves on outhustling the other team, but (Winslow) outhustled us."

When these teams met on Dec. 13, Waterville exploited its size advantage with 6-foot-4 Finley Allen scoring 21 points, most on easy shots from the low post, in an 11-point win. In Friday's rematch, the Black Raiders did a better job double- and triple-teaming Allen throughout the game. While Allen led Waterville with 14 points, none came in the fourth quarter.

"We had to front the post and try not to let (Allen) get the ball," Puiia said.

"The last time (Allen) played us, we played just straight up (man defense) on him for the first half. In the second half we tried to double down, but we hadn't worked on that at all, and we didn't do a very good job," Wood said. "We talked about that, how we don't want him to beat us."

James Wood added 11 points and five steals for Winslow. Steve Flowers scored 13 points for the Panthers.

Travis Lazarczyk -- 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com