There must be something in the water at the Graves residence that turns girls into basketball players. Sisters Taylor and Riley Graves combined for 21 of their team’s 43 points Tuesday, as Windham overcame an eight-point fourth-quarter deficit for their first win of the season, beating visiting Massabesic, 43-41.

“This was a gut check for us,” said Eagles coach Wayne Martin. “It’s great to get a win like this against a good team.”

Despite pulling down a number of rebounds and scoring the first points of the game, Windham found themselves down by five at the end of the first quarter. The Eagles were unable to consistently break the Mustangs’ full court press early in the game.

In the second it was more of the same. Massabesic’s players were hitting their shots and holding Windham down with aggressive defense.

Just before the half, Eagles junior Ally Noble drained a three-pointer following a missed free throw, bringing the crowd to its feet. That shot was the catalyst for things to come, but Windham still trailed, 27-17, as the teams headed into the locker room.

The Eagles came out fired up to start the second half.

“The third quarter has been our weakest,” said Taylor Graves, who scored all of her 10 points in the second half to lead the comeback.

The Mustangs’ aggressive defensive play resulted in a number of foul calls, which played into Windham’s favor as the Eagles shot well from the line. Still, at the end of three quarters Massabesic held an eight-point lead.

It was then that Taylor Graves took her team on her shoulders, scoring the first six points of the quarter to pull within two.

“I just wanted to go out and play hard,” she said.

The Windham defense tightened up and allowed just four points while forcing several turnovers. With each stop by the hosts’ defense, the crowd grew louder and louder, almost willing the team to win.

“It helps,” Taylor Graves said of the crowd support. “We’ve never had a game like that before. It makes you want to play better.”

The Mustangs scored their four points as the game neared its conclusion, but that didn’t seem to bother the Eagles. They kept chipping away, and when Ashley Fitzgerald nailed a three-pointer from far beyond the arc to tie the contest with just 50 seconds to go, the crowd and the team reached a fever pitch.

It seemed that the game might be headed to overtime, but with 6.9 seconds on the clock, Riley Graves was fouled and sent to the line.

“I just tried to stay calm. I wasn’t listening to anyone,” she said. “I just knew what I had to do.”

With the game on the line – and her team’s first win of the season hanging in the balance – Graves calmly sank both shots to give Windham a narrow lead.

The final seconds were tense for the partisan crowd, as Massabesic roared down the court to take one last shot, but they were unable to get it off before the buzzer.

“Mentally this is big for us,” said Martin. “We started 0-7 and didn’t want to be 0-8. It was bigger because we were down by so much.”

The Eagles will try to make it two in a row today (Jan. 13) when they host Bonny Eagle (4-4).

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