Scoring balance, 1-3-1 zone keys for Roadrunners

When Mount Abram of Strong girls basketball coach Doug Lisherness looks back on his team’s regular season and current eight-game winning streak that includes a victory in the Western Maine championship, he points to the Roadrunners’ most demoralizing loss this year as a kind of turning point.

It was the second game of the season and Mount Abram traveled to Madison, only to be pounded by the Bulldogs 57-32. The Roadrunners even lost a starter, guard Ella Fast, to a knee injury in the game.

But Mount Abram won the rematch a few weeks later, then lost close regular-season games to Dirigo of Dixfield and Winthrop and have since won eight straight, including postseason victories over Dirigo in the Western Maine semifinals and last weekend’s 62-38 win over Winthrop in the regional final.

“Their confidence has grown in every game and it’s like a new team from where we were at midseason,” Lisherness said.

Now that the Roadrunners have taken care of Dirigo and Winthrop, Lisherness has turned his attention to Eastern Maine champion Dexter and the Tigers’ 6-foot-6 senior center, Mallory Ames, whom Mount Abram will face in Saturday’s 7:05 p.m. state championship game at the Bangor Auditorium.

Lisherness, a 21-year coach who guided Mount Abram to the 1991 Class C state title and a Western Maine crown in 1992, said he’s had all kinds of suggestions about how to stop Ames and beat the Tigers. Ames averaged 25 points per game in the tournament.

“You can try throwing some junk defenses at them but nothing’s working,” he said. “She is going to get her points and at this stage I think we’re just going to go with what got us the Western Maine championship and see if that’s good enough.”

What’s gotten Mount Abram this far is balanced scoring and a 1-3-1 zone defense that Lisherness, who prefers to play man-to-man, first used in the second Madison game.

Lisherness starts 5-5 senior guard Logahn Walker, 5-8 sophomore guard Kenni Norton, 5-7 senior forward Stephanie Coburn, 5-11 junior forward Janessa Thomas and 5-9 senior center Brittany York, who was the Western Maine tourney MVP.

Norton and York led the Roadrunners in scoring this year but Thomas scored a team-high 21 points in the Western Maine final, while Thomas led Mount Abram with 11 in the semis and Walker scored a team-best 15 in the quarterfinal round.

“Counting Morgan Cummings, who is a guard who comes off the bench, at one time all six of those girls have been the leading scorer this year,” Lisherness said. “So you never really know where the scoring is going to come from. It’s a good, balanced team and I like that.”

The Roadrunners have allowed 33.8 points per game in their current winning streak.

“I’ve always played man-to-man, but these last eight games with the team personnel that we’ve had, we’ve switched to a zone,” he said. “That seems to have worked well.”