Mountain Valley 62
Cape Elizabeth 33
Sooner or later every team meets their match. For the Cape Elizabeth boys basketball team, that meeting took place on Friday at the Civic Center in Portland. Sophomore guard Justin Staires racked up 20 points for Mountain Valley as they toppled the Capers, 62-33, in a West B semifinal on Friday night at the Civic Center.
The Capers opened the game with a 4-0 run and held a 6-4 lead midway through the opening period, but that was the last lead the Capers would hold. Staires put the Falcons ahead to stay with a 3-pointer and Mountain Valley never looked back. At the end of one quarter Mountain Valley led 11-8.
The Falcons opened the second quarter with a 19-1 run before the Capers finally got five points at the end of the half to make the score 30-14.
“Defensively where we started was fine,” said Cape coach Jim Ray. “But when you don’t score any points; that’s been our problem all year. We get in spells where we don’t score any points. They had more to do with that than any team we’ve played all year. It’s tough to penetrate past them. We weren’t disciplined enough to get the extra pass to open them up and get them moving.”
Things didn’t improve for the Capers in the second half. After notching the first point of the third quarter on a Will Hall free throw, Cape didn’t score again until Mountain Valley had added 14 points to their total. The Falcons had a commanding 45-19 lead entering the fourth.
“They knocked down a few threes and it loosened them up and they got confident,” Ray said. “That’s what happens when you score. The same thing happens with us – you feel better and they felt better. They were more relaxed. At first it was ‘should I shoot or shouldn’t I?’ They shot them at the beginning and they didn’t go.”
The Falcons kept the heat on for much of the fourth quarter to make sure there would be no incredible comeback.
The Capers had a good season finishing with a 12-8 record and advancing to the West B semifinals. Coach Ray is looking forward to next year despite the fact that he will be losing some team leaders.
“(Alex) Bowe’s going to be a good player,” said Ray. “Andrew (Dickey) did a nice job as a freshman. He came along and I thought he made some good progress. We’re a fairly young team. We’ll lose Austin (Brown) at the point, (Goodykoonz) in the middle and Will Hall had a nice season. We’re looking forward to next year. We’ll have some good players coming back we’ll see if those guys continue to develop.”
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