BREWER – For all the success the Mt. Blue girls basketball team has had this season, the Cougars of Farmington haven’t always looked sharp in the third quarter of games.

Even if they had had another post-halftime letdown in Tuesday’s game against Brewer, it wouldn’t have mattered much. The Cougars put the Witches away early, using stingy zone defense and 24 points from standout Christina Mosher en route to a 57-37 victory at the high school gymnasium.

“Usually we have a tough third quarter. This time, we had the lead and we kept it,” said Mt. Blue coach Jeannine Paradis, whose Cougars move to 8-4 and currently sit in fourth place in the Eastern Maine Class A standings. “We didn’t let them dig back [into the game].”

The Witches (6-6) suffered through a second quarter in which they recorded 13 turnovers and a stretch of 6 minutes, 24 seconds in which they couldn’t score against Mt. Blue’s zone pressure.

Brewer wasn’t able to recover and never got closer than 13 points in the second half.

Despite forcing 21 turnovers in the first half, Paradis told the Cougars in the locker room she wasn’t happy with the defense, which included different zones with pressure.

“Our defense was kind of spotty in the first half because we didn’t get back [after the turnovers],” said Mosher, a 6-foot-3 center who will play at the University of Maine next year. “We had to come back and step it up. The key was to take away the middle and get in front of the cutters so they don’t up the floor as fast.”

Brewer coach Andy Nickerson said the Witches tried to prepare for the zone in practice.

“We worked on it for two or three days,” he said. “We just couldn’t handle it. We became mentally frustrated … we just need to be more solid mentally with what we do.”

It wasn’t the sharpest night for the Cougars, who had 22 turnovers themselves.

The Witches looked good early in a 2-3 zone, taking a 6-2 lead and keeping Mosher from getting too involved in the offense. But after Brewer forward Katie Kenney picked up her second foul midway through the period, Brewer went to man-to-man defense.

“We honestly felt we could play man against them with different matchups,” Nickerson said. “Obviously if Katie stayed around longer we would have played the 2-3 longer. Once we got behind, it’s really hard to go back to a 2-3 zone. We thought we had to create pressure on the ball.”

The Cougars reeled off a 9-0 run during which Silkman scored seven points. Mt. Blue had a 13-11 lead early in the second quarter but the Cougars went on a 14-0 run to go up 26-11. Silkman finished with 11 points.

“We need to remember that sometimes [the offense] works through [Mosher] and sometimes it doesn’t,” Paradis said. “When it doesn’t usually somebody else picks it up. Bonnie did that in the first quarter.”

Meghan McLain, Leah Jackson and Sheri Valley scored eight points apiece for Brewer.

Kenney eventually left the game with a shoulder injury late in the second quarter and didn’t return.

COUGARS 57, WITCHES 37

Mt. Blue (8-4) Brewer (6-6)

Player G AG F AF TP Player G AG AF TP

Robinson 0 1 3 3 3 Adams 0 1 0

Webster 2 4 0 0 4 Albert 0 3 0

Deschens 0 1 0 0 0 Cote 2 10 6

Pederson 0 0 0 0 0 Valley 4 8 8

Oswald 4 7 0 1 8 Alekswcz 0 0

Mosher 9 15 6 12 24 Jackson 3 8 8

Silkman 4 13 3 4 11 M.McLain 2 8

Fournier 0 1 1 2 1 Burgess 0 0 0

Howard 1 1 0 0 2 Seymour 0 3 1

Keach 0 1 2 4 2 J.McLain 1 2

Allen 1 2 0 0 2 Kenney 2 2 4

Totals 21 46 15 26 57 Totals 14 46 11 37

Mt. Blue 13 28 40 57

Brewer 9 16 25 37

3-pt. goals – Mt. Blue (0-2): Mosher 0-1, Fournier 0-1; Brewer (2-4): Cote 1-1, M. McLain 1-3

JV: Mt. Blue 36-30

Attendance: 250 (est.)