SACO — As any basketball coach will tell you, two keys to breaking down a zone defense are ball movement and knocking down outside shots.

Thornton Academy did both on Friday night, hitting its first six shots and finding a consistent offensive flow thanks to good ball movement on the way to a 65-47 victory over Sanford in an SMAA boys basketball game.

After starting the season 0-2, the Golden Trojans (2-2) have rebounded with two-straight double-digit victories.

“The kids played hard tonight and they played together,” Thornton coach Bob Davies said. “It’s a good win. The kids took the shots that were there and they made quite a few, which helps.”

For the second-straight game Quinn Richardson-Newton led Thornton with 22 points, hitting an early 3-pointer to extend the Spartans’ defense and using his length, athleticism and touch to score in the paint.

“All week we’ve been trying to get easy looks and pound the ball inside, and then kick it out or run offense off that,” Richardson-Newton said. “We were able to move the ball, hit the short corner and swing the ball around. Our shooters were able to get open and they made a lot of shots.”

Those shots were falling early and often for the Trojans in the opening quarter. After turning the ball over on its first possession, Thornton hit jumpers on its next six possessions, including a Corey Hart 3-pointer that extended the lead to 14-3 just four minutes in.

For a Sanford (1-4) team struggling in the early part of the season, it was the worst possible start.

“They hit their first six shots, nothing but the bottom of the net and that put us right on the back of our heels,” Sanford coach Paul Nolette said. “For a team that’s not playing with a lot of confidence right now, when a team comes out and does that, it’s tough.

“They got a great offensive flow and moved the ball well.”

Sanford recovered to get the lead back to within 17-11 by the first minute of the second quarter, largely thanks to six points from John Morgan, who led the Spartans with 22.

But the Trojans then pulled away again, hitting their first four shots of the quarter and ballooning their advantage to 38-21 by the half, as Thornton shot 44.8 percent (13 of 29) in the half.

Sanford was able to make a mini run in the second half, getting valuable points off the bench from Connor Yuill, Tye Laviolette and Zach Smith, whose shot made it 52-43 with 5:20 to play.

But that was the closest the Spartans got as Thornton guard Evan Wright fought for a scrappy offensive rebound on the Trojans’ next possession and put in the resulting layup, sparking a 13-4 Thornton run to end the game.

“Evan does a little bit of everything, so it’s fun watching him play,” Davies said.

“He played some good defense tonight and that was a good spot for him to be in to get that rebound.”

For Nolette, allowing the shortest Trojan player on the floor to grab an offensive board on perhaps the biggest possession of the game was simply the symptom of a larger problem.

“We’ve got to do a better job of boxing out,” Nolette said. “It’s a simple game, but sometimes when you’re on your heels you press too hard and you try to do too many things and you forget about what you’re supposed to do.

“It just seems like we haven’t caught a break; when we make a mistake we’re paying for it. I know we have some talent, but we just haven’t played a full game yet.”

Sanford will have a chance to put that 32-minute performance together when it travels to Noble on Monday, the same day Thornton travels to Portland to take on the undefeated Bulldogs.

For Richardson-Newton, it will be the simple of matter of just keeping a good thing rolling in the right direction.

“Our first two games were tough ones,” he said. “We just didn’t come out and play. But I like the way we’ve rebounded these past two games. We’ve just got to keep it going.”

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or [email protected]