SACO — The Thornton Academy girls’ basketball team has been dominant to start the season, but the Golden Trojans have shown they can take a punch as well.
That was on display again Tuesday night as Thornton beat Windham, 55-43, to improve to 6-0. Hannah Cook led the Trojans with 17 points, while freshman Kylie Lamson had 16 and Jessica Dow and Addisen Sulikowski had eight apiece.
“I think we’re more comfortable with each other. Some of us have been playing varsity with each other for three years,” Cook said. “We’re just clicking right now.”
Windham, which was led by 12 points from Kylie Garrison and 10 from Abbey Thornton, fell to 3-4.
“It’s a really, really tough matchup for us, and for a lot of teams,” Windham Coach Brody Artes said. “They have a lot of size, they’ve got some really good shooting from the perimeter, they’re a good, good, well-coached basketball team.”
And when they need to respond, the Trojans can do that too. Thornton entered the game with five wins by an average of 27.8 points, but after jumping to a 9-0 lead saw that lead erased as Windham’s halfcourt trap turned the ball over and allowed the Eagles to score the next nine points and even up the game.
The Trojans responded, as Lamson knocked down 3-pointers on two of the next three trips down the court for a 15-9 lead.
“Hitting two threes, coming back and them calling timeout (helped us) keep that energy high all the time,” Lamson said. “Even if it’s not me, if it’s Addie or Hannah, getting on top is just a great feeling after.”
Windham cut the deficit to 16-13 on an Abbey Thornton basket in the second quarter, but the Trojans went on a 12-4 run from there to the end of the half. A Mallory Muse 3-pointer cut the lead to single digits at 36-27 with just over two minutes left in the third, but 3-pointers from Lamson and Cook in the fourth quarter finished a 12-2 run that stretched the lead back out.
“Every time they made a run and you could kind of feel it, we responded with a big basket or a stop and a score,” Thornton Coach Eric Marston said. “We’ve had some good teams in the past, but there are a lot of times when we wouldn’t have had the same response that these girls have had.”
Cook, who had a team-high six rebounds, said the team can handle momentum swings.
“We know how to do that,” she said. “We can get punched in the mouth, and we can come right back.”
Part of that confidence comes from a balanced scoring attack. Lamson and Cook led the way Tuesday, but Sulikowski is the team’s leading scorer this season. Dow and Emily Coleman can shoot and score as well.
“Any one of those high-profile kids can score 25 in a night,” Marston said. “But we’re typically better when we’re more balanced and we’re getting double digits from each of those kids.”
The loss dropped Windham below .500, but the Eagles have faced a rough stretch. The four teams to beat them – Oxford Hills, Gorham, Bangor and Thornton – began the day a combined 20-2.
“It’s going to help us down the road, it doesn’t help us right now,” said Artes, whose team got six rebounds from Garrison, Thornton and Neve Ledbetter. “I think it’s going to help us come tourney time, because we’re going to be battle-tested for sure. But it’s a gauntlet.”
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