FA Ponies top Eagles Glover nets 20 points

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BANGOR – Six days after registering its first quarterfinal win since 1987, the Foxcroft Academy girls basketball team made school history again Wednesday afternoon.

The No. 7 Ponies logged their second upset in the Eastern Maine Class B tournament with a 59-52 victory over No. 3 Erskine Academy of South China to earn a spot in the Eastern Maine final.

No Foxcroft girls basketball team has ever been to a regional final. But that’s where the Ponies will be Saturday, playing No. 5 Mount Desert Island a 58-47 winner Wednesday over top-seeded Camden Hills.

Seniors Leslie Glover, Amy Kelley and Dana Frasz again led Foxcroft in the win, with Glover scoring a team-high 20 points.

“We had a lot more confidence, knowing that if we beat the No. 2 team [Winslow, in the quarterfinals] we knew we could beat the No. 3 team,” said Frasz, who finished with 10 points, nine rebounds and six steals.

The 5-foot-11 Glover and 6-foot Kelley again proved to be a potent combination under the basket, each feeding the other for layups. Kelley had 13 rebounds and six assists; Glover added 10 rebounds and four assists.

“We thought we had an answer for that, and not to take anything away from them, but we missed some assignments late,” Erskine coach Scott Corey said. “We gave up a dozen, I think, off that little shovel pass. … [We] made mistakes and Foxcroft was good enough to capitalize on those mistakes.”

But the forward tandem struggled in the second quarter, which is where Erskine made a move. Foxcroft had a seven-point advantage when the Eagles reeled off 10 unanswered points to take a 19-17 lead with 1:41 left in the quarter.

Erin Merrill hit a jumper to regain the lead for the Ponies, but Donna Cowing and Shauna Lessard connected on two straight baskets to give Erskine a 23-20 lead at halftime.

Things turned around for Foxcroft early in the third quarter thanks to a Frasz 3-pointer that opened the second half.

A Tracy Joslyn basket gave Erskine the lead again, but a jumper from Holli Nichols gave Foxcroft the advantage for good and pulled the Eagles out of their zone. Frasz scored eight in the third quarter.

Cowing, Erskine’s standout guard, scored a game-high 22 points but never got into a rhythm until the fourth quarter, when she scored nine points.

“Defensively I thought we played really well,” FA coach Dave Carey said. “I thought we did a great job of pinching her off until she got some seams and we got into foul trouble in the second half.”

Foxcroft went 18-for-23 from the free-throw line (Glover hit all six of her attempts).

Ponies 59, Eagles 52

Foxcroft girls (15-7) Erskine (14-6)

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

Nichols 3 14 0 2 7 Levesque 0 0 0

Frasz 3 8 3 4 10 Joslyn 1 4 2 4

Labree 0 1 1 2 1 Horak 1 4 0 2

Merrill 1 2 2 2 4 Pushard 1 2 0 2

Kelley 6 12 3 5 15 French 0 0 0 0

Champeon 0 0 0 0 0 Haskell 3 13 8

Glover 7 12 6 6 20 Nored 0 4 1 1

Dow 0 0 2 2 2 Cowing 8 17 6 14 22

Angell 0 2 0 0

Lamey 0 0 0 0

Thomas 1 1 2 4

Lessard 4 8 0 9

Totals 20 49 17 23 59 19 55 11 22 52

Foxcroft 10 20 41 59

Erskine 5 23 33 52

3-pt. goals: Foxcroft (2-11): Frasz 1-3, Nichols 1-8; Erskine (2-13): Lessard 1-3, Haskell 1-4, Pushard 0-1, Cowing 0-2, Nored 0-3