BATH

For just a couple minutes, it looked like an upset was brewing in Bath.

The Morse High School girls basketball team flew out of the gates with an 11- 2 run that froze Brunswick and forced a timeout in Thursday’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference rivalry game — but sometimes, a timeout is all it takes.

With the flip of the switch, the Dragons put up a wall on defense and held Morse to six more points the rest of the half. Then the offense started clicking and the slow start was long gone as the visitors went on to win comfortably, 61-27.

“Morse came out really fired up,” Brunswick coach Sam Farrell said. “ They’re a tough team, physical team. They came out with more energy than we did and we weren’t doing our game plan. They were shooting threes and not getting to the hoop. We changed it up. The defensive intensity on our side picked up too.”

“ We were just really stressed in the beginning,” Brunswick senior Brooke Barter said. “ I think Morse came out really, really fired up. They’re the number nine seed and we’re the number two seed, and I think that we thought we had the game in the bag in the beginning. Second quarter we came out and we realized that we just had to score more points.”

Barter gave Brunswick (9-2) most of those points herself, coming off the bench early in the second frame and reeling off 13 of Brunswick’s 18 second-quarter points. She finished with 19 total, grabbed five rebounds and guarded the rim as Morse managed just five points in the second and third frames combined.

“Brooke is a senior and has really grown up,” Farrell said. “She learned to be coached, she learned to be a part of the game plan. She doesn’t score in a game until she makes a defensive play it seems, so she’s learning to turn defense into offense. She’s running the floor, getting some rebounds, making some moves, but she’s learned defense and good rebounding turns into good offense.”

“She’s very active. She doesn’t quit,” Morse coach Becky Roak said of Barter. “ She has a nose for the ball, so she gets every rebound and she knows how to post up really well and she can cut and use her body, so she was able to score.”

The Dragons came out of the timeout and went on a 12-3 spurt to quickly grab the lead back at 15-14. Then Barter took over and scored a buzzer-beater at the half to move the score to 29-17. The senior added six more in the third frame, while guard Charlotte MacMillan chipped in four of her 13 on the night.

On the final play of the quarter, junior Sabrina Armstrong was fouled on a trey and hit all three free throws heading into the fourth, putting Brunswick up 30.

“We didn’t put the ball in the basket,” Roak said. “We played pretty good defense, came out 14-11 in the first quarter, and then second quarter we only scored three points. Third quarter we only scored two. They continued to capitalize on our turnovers and capitalize on our missed checkouts and they put the ball in the basket. That’s what it came down to.”

Hot and Cold

Following a MacMillan mid-ranger to open the game, Morse reeled off 11 straight points behind a pair of 3- pointers from Sierra Wallace. Noa Sreden picked up three of her seven total points from the free-throw line in the frame and Marissa Parks pulled in six of her game-high 12 rebounds.

Everything was clicking until the timeout abruptly turned it all off.

“We switched to zone and it just really shut them down,” Barter said. “They couldn’t figure out how to get around it and score, and then our offense came from our defense.”

An inside bucket from Parks and a lone free throw from Sreden were all the Shipbuilders managed in the second frame.

“It didn’t matter what defense we’re in, as long as we’re moving, talking, adjusting,” Farrell said. “We’re long, and if you get into the passing lanes, contest the shooters, I don’t know how many good looks they had the rest of the way. Inside they killed us for a while and we took that away. It’s all about five girls working together and we when have five on the floor doing their job, we’re a tough team.”

Three more boards from Parks led to just two total points in the third. The junior split 14 points with Sreden and was held scoreless in the fourth. Wallace’s two treys were her only two buckets of the night and Hope Faulkingham tallied five points.

“I think we need to play more as a team offensively,” Roak said. “We’re always looking for someone to kind of be that hero and I think we need to play more team basketball on the offensive end. Defensively, I feel like we’re pretty strong and we work together. We need to do it on the offensive end as well.”

Senior Aidan Sachs, Armstrong and Madeline Suhr split 21 points three ways for Brunswick. Suhr notched three assists and two blocks, while Armstrong pulled in six boards and dished out four dimes.

The Dragons have now won six of their last eight, with the only losses coming to top-seeded Greely on Dec. 15 and Class AA powerhouse Edward Little on Dec. 30.

“I got great kids. They work hard every day in practice,” Farrell said. “We know we’re a long way from where we want to be and we hope we’re not playing our best basketball right now — we’ve got to save that for February. I can’t be more pleased of these girls working their butt off every day and they really enjoy playing together. They have a lot of fun.”

Brunswick 61, Morse 27

At Bath Middle School

	Brunswick	— 11	18	20	12	—	61
Morse	—	14	3	2	8	—	27

Brunswick — Charlotte MacMillan 6- 0-13, Aidan Sachs 3-1-7, Sabrina Armstrong 1-4-7, Alexis Guptill 0-0-0, Brooke Barter 8-3-19, Madeline Suhr 2-3-7, Rian Sachs 1-0-2, Emily Larochelle 0-0-0, Mackenzie Burrows 2-0-4, Anna Kousky 0-0-0, Heather Kinee 0-0-0, Rosalie White 1-0-2. Totals — 24-11-61. Morse — Maddy Mitchell 1-0-2, Emma Gould 0-0-0, Mae Winglass 0- 0-0, Isabella Monbouquette 0-0-0, Marija Mendenica 0-0-0, Sierra Wallace 2-0-6, Hope Faulkingham 2-1-5, Marissa Parks 3-1-7, Noa Sreden 1- 5-7, Samantha Brown 0-0-0, Dory Kulis 0-0-0. Totals — 9-7-27. 3-point field goals — (B) MacMillan, Armstrong; (M) Wallace 2. Records — Brunswick 9-2, Morse 4- 7. Up next for the Dragons — Saturday at Oceanside, 12:30 p.m. Up next for the Shipbuilders — Jan. 20 at Camden Hills, 7 p.m.