OAKLAND -- This is how basketball coaches know things are going well. It's opening night, and last season's leading scorer hasn't scored a point at halftime. Yet you're still ahead by 15 points.

That's how it went for Mt. Blue boys basketball coach Jim Bessey, who watched his shooting guard, Ben Russell, take a mulligan for the first half of Friday's season opener at Messalonskee. Still, the Cougars played defense and point guard Jamie Sawyer spread the ball around.

By the time Russell, who was fighting an illness, was back to his usual self in the second half, the Cougars were on their way to a 48-28 win.

"Ben got into the flow of it later," Bessey said, "but in the first half he was dragging."

Mt. Blue led 16-7 after one quarter and 22-7 at the half. Messalonskee made just 2 of 22 shots in the first half and for much of the game had more turnovers than points. The Eagles finished with 30 turnovers.

"We didn't have any type of offensive movement," Messalonskee coach Tom Hill said. "We had a lot of possessions, but I thought we settled for a bad three (point try). We didn't have any patience."

With Russell off his game early, the Cougars went to Sawyer, who scored six of his 13 points in the first half, and Ryan Backus, who scored all 10 of his points before the break.

Russell finished with a game-high 17 points. Messalonskee managed to pull within 37-28 with just less than five minutes to play, but the Cougars scored the final 11 points of the game to pull away.

Zachary Brann scored seven points to lead Messalonskee.

Travis Lazarczyk -- 861-9242

tlazarczyk@centralmaine.com