BREWER – Five minutes into Tuesday night’s cross-class basketball showdown between the Brewer and Ellsworth girls, Witches coach Tim Thornton tended to fallen senior standout Jenny Higgins … returned to the bench … took a deep breath … and got ready for whatever was going to happen next.

“Just [her] presence on the floor really relaxes [the rest of the team],” Thornton said. “I know I had that little bit of tension. And You could tell the kids did.”

The question that ran through Thornton’s mind after Higgins went down with a sprained ankle was this, he admitted: “How are you gonna react to that?”

The answer came much later, in a game Higgins never returned to: Just fine. Brewer bolted out to a pair of substantial leads, watched both of them melt, then held on for a 55-51 win over the Eagles.

The Class A Witches improved to 2-0 while Class B Ellsworth dropped to 1-3.

“The last game she got hurt and we didn’t think we were gonna do as well, but I think we learned from that and we kept our heads up and just kept going,” said freshman Amy Freeman, who inherited the point guard slot in Higgins’ stead.

Without the calming influence of Higgins there to calm the young Witches (five sophomores and a freshman split most of the remaining minutes), Thornton sat back and watched as his team spent the game collecting floorburns.

The frenetic Witches hounded the Eagles from end line to end line, forced 28 turnovers, and made general nuisances of themselves for nearly the entire 32 minutes.

“They did what they wanted to do,” Ellsworth coach Drew Myers said. “They wanted to rush us and we rushed. If we had settled down a little bit, I don’t think we would have had so much trouble with it.”

The fast pace also took its toll on the Witches as they turned the ball over 26 times.

Speedy Witch guards Stacy Bean and Freeman were the main culprits in the ballhawking defense.

They turned that pressing ”D” into points on the other end, as sophomore Bean finished with 14 points and Freeman added 12 points, six rebounds, and five steals.

Carolyn McAvoy did much of the dirty work down low, scoring 17 points and grabbing seven rebounds against a bigger Ellsworth squad.

Ellsworth countered with 13 points and nine rebounds from Jodie Merchant and nine points apiece from Mallory Patten and Sarah Silsby.

The Witches forced 12 turnovers in the second quarter while running out to a 23-15 lead, then watched as the Eagles pecked away at the advantage and got it down to three points midway through the third.

And after Brewer reeled off a 12-1 spurt to push the lead to 14 late in the third, Ellsworth began a slow charge that made things interesting.

Patten scored seven of her nine points in the fourth quarter to help spark a 17-5 run that evened the score at 48-48 with 2:52 to play.

But the resilient Witches never let Ellsworth take the lead and reeled off seven straight points to put the game away.

“I think we sort of got our heads all caught up in the game and … just needed to slow ourselves down,” Bean said.

Freeman followed a McAvoy free throw by stepping in front of a pass in Ellsworth’s offensive end and turning the steal into a pull-up eight-footer that made it 51-48 with 2:35 to go.

McAvoy pushed the edge to six when she converted a conventional 3-point play with 1:15 to go.

Witches 55, Eagles 51

Ellsworth (1-3) Brewer (2-0)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG F AF TP

Chan 3 12 2 2 8 Bean 4 12 4 6 14

Silsby 3 10 3 8 9 A. Freeman 5 12 1 5 12

Patten 4 11 0 0 9 K. Freeman 0 4 1 4 1

Pelletier 0 0 0 2 0 Wing 1 4 5 6 7

Sirois 2 10 1 5 6 McAvoy 5 13 7 9 17

Merchant 6 8 1 6 13 Hamm 0 4 0 1 0

Glass 1 2 0 1 2 Sutherland 0 0 0 0 0

Page 1 3 2 2 4 Higgins 2 4 0 0 4

Lutz 0 0 0 0 0

Totals 20 56 9 26 51 Totals 17 53 18 31 55

Ellsworth 10 17 31 51

Brewer 10 25 42 55

3-pt. goals: Ellsworth (2-7): Chan 0-3, Patten 1-1, Sirois 1-3; Brewer (3-13): Bean 2-6, A. Freeman 1-5, Wing 0-1, Hamm 0-1

Attendance: 350 (est.)

Preliminary: Ellsworth JVs 51-31