South Portland’s boys basketball team notched its first win of the year Tuesday, knocking off Thornton Academy, 56-53.
Both squads battled to the buzzer, but the Riots (1-5) came back and emerged on top of the visiting Trojans (2-4).
“We are very inexperienced,” said Riots coach Tony Dibiase, “so a lot of times we come out and don’t get off to a good start.”
That was the case early in the game when TA three-point threat Justin Blake was on fire, hitting his first shots of the game from behind the line and helping to give his team the lead, 18-13, at the end of the first quarter.
South Portland fought back in the second behind a tough zone defense and the stellar play on both sides of the ball by Coleman Findlay. The junior forward scored on his first two possessions of the game and had eight of his 11 points in the first half, helping his team go into the locker room tied, 27-27.
“Every game he is our leading rebounder with 12, 14 rebounds a game,” Dibiase said. “He is a big strong kid inside who uses his body well.”
Thornton came out in the third quarter landing consecutive three-point shots from Mike Burchill (14 points) and Justin Blake (19 points), but South Portland’s Dustyn Dow answered with two of his own.
The teams then traded turnovers, but South Portland found themselves heading into the last quarter with a narrow 44-39 lead.
The Trojans came roaring back late in the final period with 10 unanswered points, capped off by Blake’s fifth three-pointer, which gave TA a one-point lead with 2:30 remaining.
Rob Moreau, who lead the Riots with 14 points, answered right back with a lay-up to put his team on top with less than two minutes to go.
Thornton then ran into foul trouble and South Portland’s Kevin Tait (eight points) capitalized, hitting a pair of free throw to extend the Riots lead to three, 54-51.
The Trojans answered quickly, rushing up the court to pull within one on a shot by Tyler Kelley (18 points), but that would be the closest they would come. Two more South Portland free throws put the game out of reach.
“We knew South Portland was going to be a tough team,” said Blake. “We knew that they played some tough teams and hadn’t lost by much, so we knew we were in for a dogfight.”
“When your playing zone, the object is to move the ball. Get it in, get it out,” said Thornton coach Bob Davies. “We had great ball movement and (Blake) was the guy who was open. We played well as a team, and we knocked down some shots.”
Despite the slow start to the season, Dibiase is not discouraged.
“This is a very young group and we have most guys coming back (next year),” the coach said. “It’s a learning situation, but you never know…if we come down the stretch and pull off a few more upsets, you never know what might happen.”
South Portland travels to Scarborough (2-4) Friday, while Thornton hosts unbeaten Portland (6-0) that same evening.
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