WESTBROOK — The Falmouth girls’ basketball team picked a perfect time to get hot Tuesday night.
Emily Abbott and Anna Turgeon both reached 20 points and combined for six 3-pointers during a 25-point third quarter, and the Navigators took command in the second half to defeat Westbrook, 64-48.
“I think this win and our last win against Biddeford really kept our momentum going,” said Abbott, who led the way for Falmouth with 23 points. “It was good to get our confidence back up. I think we’re definitely all really motivated and really excited to get in the playoffs.”
After three straight losses to end January, Falmouth (11-6) has won two straight.
“They needed this game, we needed this game for a lot of reasons too,” Falmouth Coach Dawn Armandi said. “It was really great to see them come alive in the second half and shoot well. We need that confidence going into playoffs.”
Westbrook (10-7) missed out on a chance to wrap up the eighth spot in the Class A South standings. The Blue Blazes can clinch with either a win in Thursday’s finale against Marshwood or a Fryeburg Academy loss to Freeport on Wednesday.
“That really hurt,” Westbrook Coach John Young said about the Navigators’ hot third quarter. “I loved our effort, I thought we did a lot of good things. … I thought we were getting to the rim when we needed to, but the threes, they hurt.”
Westbrook led 31-30 at the end of a back-and-forth first half that featured 12 lead changes, the last coming when Leah Cromarty (nine points) finished off a nice pass inside with 18 seconds to go.
The Navigators, however, started fast after the break. Turgeon (20 points) hit a 3-pointer for a 33-31 lead 15 seconds in, and Abbott, who had 15 points in the first half, drove to put Falmouth in front 35-33 with six minutes left in the third.
Abbott then hit two 3s for a 41-35 lead, prompting a Westbrook timeout with 4:16 to go. Turgeon then hit a 3-pointer on the next possession, and after two Falmouth baskets, she hit back-to-back 3s for a 54-41 advantage with just over a minute to go in the period.
“Emily and I were setting screens for each other, and kind of playing off each other,” Turgeon said. “Sometimes one of us will get face guarded and the other is more open, and we’re kind of getting more used to that.”
Maddy Christman had seven points and 12 rebounds, while Reese Farraher added seven points for Falmouth.
“We needed it for our confidence reasons,” Armandi said. “We needed a lot of things out of this game and we got some of that tonight, shooting being one of them.”
Taylar Hodge had 10 points while Cromarty and Kylie Young had nine for the Blue Blazes, who saw a tight game turn one-sided in a hurry.
“We talk about ‘Just keep playing. Let’s not worry about the score,’ ” Coach Young said. “Good teams find a way to come out of (those lulls), and they don’t always win, but they find a way to overcome them. That’s what we just have to do.”
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