BIDDEFORD — Thornton Academy came into Thursday night’s regular season finale against Biddeford having won five-straight games and eight of its last nine. And after the Tigers played the Trojans even in the first quarter, the Trojans rolled the rest of the way, finishing off the regular season with a 72-55 win over their biggest rival in an SMAA boys basketball game at Tiger Gym.
Thornton pulled ahead early, scoring six-straight points after Biddeford senior Will Durkin opened the game with a layup. But another layup from Durkin started a 6-2 run for the Tigers to knot up the game at 8-8.
The first quarter continued to be back-and-forth, and after the Trojans (12-6) missed three chances to take the lead on the final possession, the two teams stood tied at 15-15.
“We’ve actually struggled all year to score points. I was kind of surprised that we had 15 points against a good, solid defense like that,” said Biddeford head coach Justin Tardif. “I thought we did a really good job on our offensive set of getting into the paint.”
A personal 4-0 run by Thornton senior Evan Wright to start the second was the beginning of the end for the Tigers (0-18), however. The hosts pulled to within 21-20, but the Trojans went on a 7-0 run to pull away.
“I think defensively we stopped giving up layups, rebounded a little bit better,” Thornton head coach Bob Davies said of what allowed his team to pull away. “We gave up some offensive rebounds, which led to some open shots for them. As the game went on, we did that a little bit better.”
Quinn Richardson-Newton ”“ who scored just two points in the first quarter ”“ led a 24-point Thornton period with nine points of his own, the last three of which came on a second-chance 3-pointer at the buzzer to give the Trojans a 39-25 halftime lead.
Biddeford senior T.J. McCann opened the second half by stealing the ball and going the other way for an easy layup. But things didn’t continue to go the other way for the Tigers.
Richardson-Newton continued with his hot shooting with 11 points in the period before sitting out the final two minutes.
“I thought T.A. did just a good job making their foul-line jumpers. As I look at the stats, they’re probably going to shoot a pretty good percentage,” said Tardif. “I thought their ability to hit that 15-footer was the separation that they needed.
“(That’s) a shot, honestly, we kind of want to give up, because of their size inside. And you’ve got to give credit to them, they made shots.”
Biddeford was able to cut the deficit to 12 again on a Corey Creeger 3-pointer with 1:20 left, but couldn’t get any closer as the Trojans went into the fourth up 58-44.
“We took care of the ball, and we realized when we had numbers, go get layups, and our kids did that a couple times,” said Davies. “It breaks some momentum.”
“I think T.A. is just one of those teams that isn’t going to make mistakes too often. They’re a smart team, they’re well-coached,” said Tardif. “They did a good job of just scoring when they absolutely needed to.”
A 3-pointer from Jeremy Lugiano ”“ his only points of the game ”“ cut Biddeford’s deficit to 11 to start the fourth quarter, but that was as close as the Tigers got. Thornton hit 8-10 free throws in the fourth to salt away the victory.
“Coach Tardif does a great job with those guys,” said Davies, “and that team kept playing as hard as they possibly could the whole entire game, and that’s because of the type of coach he is.”
“We easily could have lost that game in that third quarter, and got down 20, 25 and it could have been a runaway blowout,” said Tardif. “But we were able to hang in there. We did a good job just fighting, and they’ve been doing that all year.”
Richardson-Newton scored a game-high 26 points, and Wright and Kevin Barrett pitched in with 14 apiece.
McCann scored a team-high 17 points for Biddeford, with fellow seniors Creeger and Durkin adding 15 and nine, respectively. The trio combined to score 41 of the Tigers’ 55 points.
“That’s what we needed from them, in a game like that. We needed them to come up and step up. And I thought offensively they did,” Tardif said of his seniors. “I think we just didn’t get enough defensive stops.”
With the win, the Trojans secured the No. 5 seed in the Western Class A playoffs, and will host a preliminary round game on Tuesday.
“Down the stretch we’ve been playing a lot better basketball, and the boys have been moving the ball better in the last third of the season,” said Davies. “So hopefully we can continue doing that.
“We got things we still got to work on. We’ll see if we can go on a little run.”
— Staff Writer Wil Kramlich can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or sports@journaltribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @WilTalkSports.
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