This time it’s Thornton

SACO — This time, the game was more reminiscent of a rivalry game between Thornton Academy and Biddeford.

And in this contest, it’s the Golden Trojans who get the upper hand.

Thornton exacted revenge on its ancient rival on Thursday night, as the Trojans girls basketball team defeated the Tigers 39-36 at Linnell Gym.

Thornton finishes the regular season with a 10-8 record, while Biddeford ends its season with a 4-14 record.

The Trojans dropped the first contest of the season against Biddeford back on Jan. 23 in a 36-29 ballgame. Thornton had trouble against Biddeford’s press defense in that contest, but no such trouble presented itself on Thursday, as forward Olivia Shaw (18 points) and forward Meghan Agger (13 points) took over offensively and combined to score 31 of Thornton’s 39 points.

“I think honestly, for whatever reason, (defensive) pressure bothered us the first time around,” Thornton head coach Eric Marston said. “We still had a few hiccups here and there, but I think that we handled the pressure a little bit better tonight and got a few easy buckets out of it.”

Both teams went back and forth throughout the entire contest without distancing far apart from the other. Both teams struggled to score in the first quarter, as Biddeford took a 5-4 lead. The pace picked up in the second, as the Trojans headed into halftime with a 19-17 lead.

Agger and Shaw stepped their games up in the second half, leading Thornton to a 31-27 lead going into the fourth quarter. Biddeford had opportunities to take over the game from the free-throw line, but the Tigers went 7 of 14 in the second half, missing out on valuable points.

“It’s a huge difference,” Biddeford head coach Brian Heal said. “A bunch of those (free throws) were missing on the front end of 1-and-1’s and that makes things a little bit difficult. But those are breaks. We got to the line and just didn’t capitalize on it. You’ve got to give Thornton a lot of credit, they played a heck of a game.”

Biddeford pulled to within three points of the Trojans when guard Carissa Gelinas nailed a jump shot with 10 seconds to play. But after the Trojans’ possession, the Tigers had only 0.3 seconds to get a shot off before the buzzer, and were unable to do so.

“I knew it was going to be a dogfight again,” Marston said. “I think Coach Heal does a great job with those girls and they play hard every game. I think they’re a better team than their record reflected. They’re very scrappy, play extremely hard and they took us out of our game, but we made plays when we had to down the stretch and that’s why we’re on the positive end of the scoreboard.”

Biddeford had three scorers with a team-high six points each in Heather Fecteau, Bryanna Michaud and Laciann Gilblair.

As the regular season ends, Thornton is looking at a No. 6 seed in the Western Maine Class A playoffs beginning on Feb. 15. If the Trojans keep their ranking, they will play the No. 11 seed in the preliminary round, which could be Bonny Eagle, Gorham, South Portland or Massabesic, depending on what happens on Friday night.

“If we want to do anything come playoff time, we’ve got to tighten a lot of things up,” Marston said. “Including our half-court offensive execution, which was okay at times, but the majority of times we’re still lacking the execution.”

The Tigers will miss the playoffs for the second consecutive season, but as Heal explains, progress continues to be made, and Biddeford returns with nine varsity players next season.

“The girls know me better and know what to expect, I know what to expect from them,” Heal said. “We’ll keep on working at it. They’ll be some things that are going to change next year, but obviously we’ll try to learn and get better. That’s the goal.”

NOTES: Thursday’s game was Senior Night at Linnell Gym. Thornton’s four seniors, Meghan Agger, Katie Kalagias, Jacinta Wright and Katherine Zafirson, all started in the contest, seeing significant time in the first quarter. The foursome were also on the floor to start the second half. The game was also the final contest for five Biddeford seniors in Fecteau, Michaud, Alyson Roy, Brianna Laverriere and Ciera Kelly.

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