SANFORD — The Sanford girl’s basketball team scored on six overtime free throws to push past visiting Thornton Academy 46-41 Tuesday night.

The Spartans took the lead in the second quarter and held it until the final minute of regulation. TA would then score three points to force the extra period in the final seconds of play. 

The Spartans then went on to outscore the Trojans 6-1 in the overtime period and secure the hard-fought win.

“This is huge for us. We have been up and down and we’re entering a part of the season where all of these games mean something,” said Sanford coach Kristy Parent. “There are two dominant teams and then the rest are fighting for playoff spots. We have some young players starting to play well, it’s been good.”

Sanford deployed its big lineup against the Trojans, using forwards Paige Cote, Annie Ledue and Julia Cyr throughout much of the contest. The three would dominate in the paint defensively and combine for 30 points on offense to help propel the Spartans to the win.

“It posed some matchup problems for us obviously, we had to do a few different things,” said TA coach Eric Marston. “I’m proud of the way the girls responded, some people were in positions they weren’t used to so I was pleased with their effort. Their bigs are skilled and they have a couple of good, young players.”

Although Marston was pleased with his club’s effort, he was disappointed in its execution late in the game.

“We just didn’t execute in a variety of situations — we turned it over too many times, we got into some foul trouble, we didn’t have a good flow all night. We didn’t make the plays down the stretch in overtime that we needed to.”

Cyr led the Spartans with 16 points while Cote added eight. Ledue and Summer Camire would each score six apiece as well.

Alisha Aube scored a game-high 18 points for TA while Alex Hart also chipped in 16 for the Trojans.

Sanford improves to 4-5 on the year, and Parent hopes that Tuesday’s win will be a confidence booster for her squad.

“It’s good because I don’t think they have ever had this, being able to go into overtime and not feel bad for themselves and to be able to dominate in the overtime. I think this is big because now they can feed off of this and build on it,” said Parent. “Do they finally believe, do they finally believe they can play? They beat Bonny Eagle, they beat TA, they beat Portland, they competed with Windham and Scarborough. It’s a collection, this team isn’t going to be one superstar that wins it, everyone is going to have to accept their roles and play within that role … that’s what they are starting to appreciate.”

The Trojans fall to 5-2, and Marston believes there is a lot to take away from Tuesday’s game despite the loss.

“There’s a lot to be learned from this,” said Marston. “I thought that if perhaps we won they would not have learned as much from that, we might have just said OK and moved on. I think this will allow us to learn, there was a ton for the coaches and players to learn. If we are going to beat good teams we are going to have to do some different things.”

— Associate Sports Editor Alex Sponseller can be reached at asponseller@journaltribune.com or at 282-1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.

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