Carrabec’s Brooke Welch dribbles past Madison’s Katie Worthen on Monday in North Anson.

NORTH ANSON — It was over almost as soon as it started.

A young Carrabec girls basketball team played like a group of savvy veterans Monday night, doubling up rival Madison 54-27 in a Mountain Valley Conference game inside the Cobra Dome. A trio of freshmen led the way for the Cobras, with Cheyenne Cahill scoring a game-high 16 points to lead the way in a dominant first half. Julia Baker added 12 more, while Brooke Welch scored 10 points and hauled down seven rebounds.

“They were a pretty tight group last year in the eighth grade, and they just love to play basketball,” said Carrabec coach Skip Rugh, whose team improved to 2-1 to begin the season. “They put the time in. (Cahill) plays hard and hustles and plays hard-nosed defense.”

The Cobras came out firing against the Bulldogs, who suffered their first loss after opening the year with three straight wins. The hosts raced out to a 15-2 lead by the time Katie Worthen (seven points) connected for Madison’s first field goal with six minutes remaining in the first half.

Cahill was in her element early on, scoring five of her team’s first nine points — while assisting on the other two buckets with heady assists under the hoop.

“As soon as we come in and beat them in the first three minutes, then we have them,” Cahill said of the emphasis on a fast start.

It was part of a half that saw Carrabec shoot an even 50 percent from the floor (13 for 26) and turn their decided rebounding advantage (17-10) into second-chance points.

“We needed to get a lot of speed into it and a lot of power and beat them on the boards,” Cahill said.

Madison, meanwhile, couldn’t find any rhythm. The team connected at just a 16.7 percent success rate over the opening 16 minutes (4 of 24). It was a far cry from the efforts that ran the team out to a 3-0 start with double-digit wins over Richmond, Telstar and Wiscasset.

“We do have some inexperienced people, so we’re learning every day,” Madison coach Al Veneziano said. “We’re going to have some highs, and we’re going to have some lows. We’re going to get through it.”

Carrabec’s Sara Olsen passes the ball in front of Madison’s Landyn Landry on Monday in North Anson.

Carrabec cooled offensively in the second half, missing its first eight attempts from the floor in the third quarter. But that was balanced by a tenacious man-to-man defense, one which the Cobras didn’t let be affected by their sudden offensive woes at the other end of the gym.

Turnovers didn’t help the Bulldogs, with 17 of them compounding the 10 of 19 free throws they missed as a team.

“We didn’t get good movement of people, and when you don’t get good movement of people the ball doesn’t move. That stalls everything,” Veneziano said. “Then we think we have to get something quick, and against a team like that it’s not going to happen.”

“It was good that we didn’t let the energy level drop when we weren’t scoring on the other end,” Rugh said. “We really talked about the first three minutes (of the third quarter) and how we needed to come out. We didn’t, but at least we continued with the defense.”

Madison whittled the Carrabec lead down to 36-20 with 40 seconds left in the third period, but Cobra sophomore Sara Olson stepped off the bench and drained a 3-pointer from the right corner and a long jumper from the same spot on consecutive possessions to build the lead to 41-20 with the final eight minutes still to play.

Nine different Carrabec players hit the scoresheet on the night from a roster without a single senior.

Madison got six points from Brooke McKenney and five points from Brooke Ross on an otherwise difficult night offensively for the Bulldogs.

Travis Barrett — 621-5621

tbarrett@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @TBarrettGWC