SOUTH CHINA — The mismatch was clear on paper, but Emma Stred felt the upset was a foregone conclusion.
Aside from her seven points. the senior Stred’s 11 rebounds provided the boost Erskine Academy needed, and the Eagles knocked off reigning Class A state champion Skowhegan 27-20 in a Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference game Thursday night at Nelson Gymnasium. Erskine (1-2 closed the night with a 9-0 run to steal the victory.
“Our last practice, we were like, ‘We’re definitely going to win this game,” said Stred, who along with her teammates suffered a 49-point loss to Oceanside their last time out. “We knew the energy was good and everyone was participating and giving 110 percent.”
The River Hawks (2-2) certainly are not the same version of the squad that earned the Gold Ball last winter, but they still represent a benchmark within the league. In an ugly game dictated by turnovers and missed buckets, Skowhegan was missing the type of veteran on-court presence that could see them through the mire.
“We don’t have the leadership we had last year.,” said Skowhegan coach Mike LeBlanc, who credited Erskine with a good game plan. “Everybody says, ‘You’ve got kids that played significant minutes.’ No, I don’t. It’s an all new learning experience for us, and we’re still learning.”
After a 7-7 first half that took only 21 minutes to complete, Erskine head coach Jamie Soule warned his team that the first three minutes of the third quarter would prove the most important minutes of the night.
Senior guard Grace Hutchins responded, drilling 3-pointers from both sides of the floor on consecutive possessions, and classmate Mackenzie Toner added a hoop of her own to hand the home team a 15-9 lead.
Hutchins finished with a game-high 11 points.
“Grace Hutchins did a good job hitting those two threes back-to-back,” Stred said. “We didn’t give up on defense. We were tired, but we were still there.”
When Skowhegan eventually pushed back early in the fourth quarter, with an Annabelle Morris trey from the left corner and an Arabel Linkletter bank shot in the lane to take a 20-18 lead — its first since an early 4-3 advantage — the Eagles refused to go away.
Erskine’s Emma Stred (24) battles for the rebound with Skowhegan’s Maddy Morris (2) and Aryana Lewis (10) during a girls basketball game Thursday in South China. Michael G. Seamans
Toner tied it at 20-20 with 4:38 remaining, and then a Stred steal turned into an old-fashioned 3-point play at the other end of the floor to put Erskine ahead (23-20) to stay with 2:22 left.
“That was a time that we easily could have crumbled,” Soule said of Skowhegan’s fourth-quarter lead. “It was fantastic defensive effort that kept a very good Skowhegan team from getting open shots.”
Eight of Stred’s game-high 11 boards came in the second half.
“I just bottled up whoever was near me,” Stred said. “I just had to do everything I could. If I couldn’t, I was going to be disappointed in myself.”
“Emma Stred’s our captain for a reason,” Soule said. “She’s an emotional leader, as well as a physical leader. She banged around tonight, and they have some big girls she was able to contain and take care of. Offensively, she got tossed around a little bit but played a really physical game, too, to keep us in it.”
Morris finished with a team-high nine points for Skowhegan, while Aryana Lewis scored seven.
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