HARRINGTON – The Narraguagus Knights entered Monday night’s schoolgirl basketball contest against George Stevens Academy knowing that their success – or failure – may well depend upon exactly how much damage one particular player would do against them.

Michala Bunten, you see, is 6-foot-6. And if she gets the ball, as Narraguagus coach Steven Noyes pointed out before the game, she’s very tough to stop.

“It’s almost impossible to keep her from scoring 20,” Noyes said.

That’s IF she gets the ball. But Narraguagus didn’t let that happen too much – at least while the game was still in doubt – and used that strategy to post a 52-29 win over the Eagles of Blue Hill.

The Knights opened the game by hounding the GSA guards unmercifully out of a trapping man-to-man press to keep the Eagles from simply walking the ball upcourt and lobbing it to Bunten and benefited from some early foul trouble on the GSA star en route to the win. Bunten entered the game averaging 24 points, 14 rebounds and seven blocks per game.

She finished with 13 points, five rebounds and a block but sat out much of the final six minutes as coach Larry Deans cleared his bench with a 20-point deficit.

“The plan was to just try to keep the pressure on full-court for four quarters and give them some different looks with our full-court pressure, to just try to make them work to get the ball downcourt,” Noyes said.

Narraguagus star Sarah Snider, who scored 23 points, said the perimeter defense was a big key to the win.

“We figured that if we had a lot of good guard play on their guards and forced them to make difficult passes into her, that would be the best way [to defend], instead of just letting them pass into her and then trying to defend,” Snider said.

That strategy worked very well, as only two other Eagles were able to break into the scoring column: Bethany Roberts, who scored nine, and Sarah Clapp, who had four.

Narraguagus improves to 8-2 while GSA drops to 3-5.

The Knights forced 14 first-half turnovers and held the Eagles to just three attempts from the floor over the game’s first 61/2 minutes. By that time, they were up 17-5 and Bunten had two fouls. GSA finished the game with 24 turnovers.

Snider did much of the offensive damage, scoring 19 points before intermission.

“[In the first half] my shot was seeming to fall, so I kept going with it,” said Snider, who made five of six shots from the floor in the second quarter. “A couple times I got going too fast. I’ve got to slow myself down a little bit.”

Annie Woodsum, at 5-11, added nine points and was responsible for guarding Bunten in the first half.

Narraguagus led 19-5 after one period and 33-16 at the half, and outrebounded the taller Eagles 12-11 before intermission.

KNIGHTS 52, EAGLES 29

George Stevens (3-5) Narraguagus (8-2)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Clapp 3 8 1 2 7 Strout 0 1 0

Markle 0 3 0 0 0 M. Barbee 2 6

Youcis 0 2 0 0 0 Tenney 1 1 2

Roberts 3 13 3 5 9 Sawyer 1 2 2

Wardwell 0 0 0 0 0 Woodsum 4 7 9

Driscoll 0 2 0 0 0 L. Barbee 2 4

Kiniston 0 2 0 2 0 Snider 11 18 23

Grindle 0 0 0 0 0 Howe 2 4 4

Allen 0 2 0 0 0 Tenan 0 0 0

Bunten 6 12 1 2 13 Grant 0 1 0

Torrey 1 1 0 2

Totals 12 44 5 11 29 24 41 52

George Stevens 5 16 25 29

Narraguagus 19 33 43 52

3-pt. goals: George Stevens (0-6): Clapp 0-1, Roberts 0-4, Kiniston 0-1; Narraguagus (1-2): M. Barbee 1-2

Attendance: 125 (est.)

Preliminary: Narraguagus JVs 49-34