With an abundance of competitors and athletes who have won a lot of games in other sports, an 0-3 start doesn’t sit well with the Windham girls basketball players.

But coming up short in their difficult early schedule has yet to get the Eagles down in spirit.

“We’re going to stay in there. We’re going to fight,” said Darcey Webster, who, along with several of her teammates had a little better success in recent softball and soccer seasons.

“They are great competitors, no matter what the sport,” said first-year basketball coach Wayne Martin. “(Forward) Sharma (Wing) could be playing ping pong and she’d hate to lose,” he added about one of the school’s top soccer stars. “Maybe if we could play with our feet…”

But don’t let the light-hearted comment, coming on the heels of a tough Tuesday night 53-43 loss to Deering, give the wrong impression. These Eagles are making steady improvement and have the skills to build on.

Early on in Tuesday’s game, it was Allyson Noble setting the pace. Noble, who is also the softball team’s successful pitching ace, picked up where she left off a game earlier with a sharp long-range shooting touch that had the home team up by as many as six points in the first quarter. She finished with 18 points and nailed four first-half three-point field goals.

But Deering, which improved to 4-1, kept the game in sight with a vigorous full-court game, both offensively and defensively, and that proved to be the difference.

Windham trailed by a point after both a quarter (13-12) and a half (24-23) and slipped down by five points after three quarters, but still hung in there, thanks to that competitive spirit, says their coach.

“We had been struggling with handling pressure,” said Martin. “But we’re getting better at that and tonight we didn’t struggle with that as much. Tonight what we struggled with was finishing.”

After Webster hit a pair of free throws with 2:36 remaining, the Eagles trailed by just three points (44-41).

“And we kept putting them on the line after that,” Martin said, “and they kept missing, but they got the offensive rebounds, and that killed us.”

Noble’s hot hand continued from the team’s previous game, a home loss to South Portland, where she scored 20 points and knocked down five three-pointers.

“This is her breakthrough year,” said Martin. “She’s got extreme confidence and that’s good to see early.”

Said Noble of her keen shooting success, “I never imagined this at all.”

But she was also quick to note that this isn’t a one-player offense.

“We have other players who are scoring and other good shooting guards, too,” she said.

Against South Portland, the Windham girls trailed by 18 points at halftime before outscoring the Red Riots 34-20 in the second half, Wing finishing with 14 points in that game.

Still, the comeback fell short and Windham lost 55-51.

“But we are definitely making progress,” said Webster, who added that the loss Tuesday was a bit tougher to take.

“We wanted this game more than the others because of what happened last year with Deering in the playoffs,” she said, referring to a loss to the Rams in last winter’s post-season.

Also notable Tuesday was the aggressive defense of Taylor Graves (who finished with five points), and the strong board work of Ashley Fitzgerald, who has been relied on more this season to battle under the boards, yet still retains her long-range shooting touch. She finished with eight points and had an early three-point field goal that put the Eagles up 10-4 in the opening four minutes.

Wing finished with six points, while Webster had four and Sarah Brown came off the bench to pull some rebounds and score two points. Letha Works also came off the bench and helped out under the basket.

Andrea Mailo led Deering with 14 points.

The Windham girls will try again to get that first win Friday when Biddeford comes to town for a 7 p.m. game.

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