SCARBOROUGH — The No. 2 Scarborough girls basketball team would nail nine 3-pointers as the Red Storm worked past No. 7 Sanford 53-36 in the Class AA South quarterfinals on Tuesday.

The Red Storm led 12-9 after one, but would go on a 14-5 second quarter run to push the score to 26-14 at half and take control. Scarborough shot well in the first half, hitting over 50 percent from 3-point land.

“For us we got some stops. It was about us playing a very good defensive game against them because they’re a good shooing team. They are good stand-still shooters and we did a good job in spurts of doing that, but we had some miscommunication at times and they’d unload a three on us,” said Sanford coach Rossie Kearson after the loss.

The Red Storm came out firing in the third quarter, hitting three more 3-pointers. Sanford’s Paige Cote scored eight points in the third quarter to cut the score to 41-28 heading into the fourth.

However, Scarborough held on down the stretch to secure the win and punch its ticket to the Class AA South semis.

Sophie Glidden led Scarborough with 19 points, while Isabella Dickinson added 14 points and four 3-pointers. Madison Blanche also chipped in 13 points.

Cote led the Spartans with 13 points while Samya Santiague added 10, including two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter.

Despite the loss, Kearson felt that the young Spartans, who only have one senior, handled the big stage well for many of their first playoff performances.

“They handled it good. The atmosphere is something different and that they haven’t experienced before. Overall for the group it was exciting to see and we hope to make it back next year and further than we did,” said Kearson.

Kearson also expects to see the Red Storm in the future, and hopes the Spartans learned from the loss.

“(Scarborough) is a young team as well. This is a team going forward we match up well with and we have to understand that it can’t be a situation of trading threes with twos. We need to make them earn everything and put the ball on the floor,” said Kearson.

Sanford finishes the year with a 4-15 overall record. The Spartans will head into the offseason, and will say goodbye to their senior captain Molly Boissonneault.

“She’s a great kid. I’ve told her time and time again that I wish she was a junior. She gives you everything she has without any question. Just a ‘go through a wall for you’ type of kid, a lot of grit, a great leader of our team,” said Kearson.

Sanford hopes this year’s experience will help the Spartans continue to grow, and Kearson already saw plenty of development throughout the season.

“Each game, and especially the last five games that we played in the regular season, we progressed,” said Kearson. “That was the only thing I was looking for, each game getting better. From the beginning to the end we could see that we got a whole lot better.”

— 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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