YARMOUTH — Taking over when she needed to, point guard Sara D’Appolonia scored 18 points to lead Yarmouth to an important 42-30 victory against Wells in a Western Maine Conference girls’ basketball game Tuesday night.
The win vaulted the Clippers into second place behind unbeaten Gray-New Gloucester in the Class B South Heal point standings. The loss dropped the Warriors from second to fourth. Both teams are 7-4.
Yarmouth took early control when its zone defense made it difficult for Wells to run its offense. After the Warriors scored the first two baskets, the Clippers ran off 19 points to open a 19-4 lead with less than three minutes remaining in the first half.
“We’ve been pretty good against the zone but we didn’t move the ball from side to side well,” Wells Coach Don Abbott said. “Their length made it difficult for us to get the ball into the low post and our shot selection wasn’t very good. We just couldn’t penetrate in the first half.”
“(Wells is) a great execution team,” Yarmouth Coach Chris Strong said. “They’re very good at getting the ball into the low post and the short corner, so we knew we needed to protect the low post.”
The Clippers sank 12 of 19 shots in the first half and held a 25-10 lead.
But the Warriors opened the third quarter with a 10-0 run.
“I’m never happy with the loss,” Abbott said, “but I was pleased with how (my players) responded in the second half.That’s something we can build on.”
D’Appolonia killed Wells’ momentum by hitting a 3-pointer with about a minute left in the third quarter to make it 30-22.
“We weren’t able to get it over the hump,” Abbott said.
Natalie Thurber sank a 3-poiner in the opening minute of the fourth quarter to pull Wells back within five points, but that was as close as it got. Yarmouth held the Warriors to five points the rest of the way.
“They clearly talked at half-time on how to adjust their offense,” D’Appolonia said. “We had to change it up and change our defense, and that seemed to work well for us.”
“We just made adjustments in the second half to counter their adjustments,” Strong said. “We just put more pressure on (their) guards. Our defensive principles are all the same. It’s just that we can adjust one player and it can make a difference.”
D’Appolonia scored 10 of her game-high total in the second half.
“Sara just makes thing happen,” Strong said. “Ball movement-wise. Finding the open player.”
“Part of being the point guard is to run the offense and get people to where they’re supposed to be,” D’Appolonia said. “I couldn’t do what I do without my teammates. They are the team, and I think we work really well together.”
Clementine Blaschke, a sophomore forward, scored eight of her 12 points for the Clippers in the second half.
Meg Schneider led the Warriors with 10 points.
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