A point guard by nature is like a coach on the floor, scouting out openings in the opponent’s defense.

But Central of Corinth point guard Danny Kane takes those responsibilities even more seriously, not only scouting out openings in opponents’ defenses while he’s on the court, but also when he has a night off.

The 17-year-old senior from Bradford often spends free evenings at other gymnasiums, armed with pen and notebook scouting future Red Devil opponents.

Already this season he has been seen at games in Guilford and Orono, all with an eye toward helping himself and his team know what to expect from rival teams later in the season.

“I wanted to know what I was going to see when we played them,” said Kane, who scored 16 points Monday night as coach Harold Williams’ club improved to 2-2 with a 50-36 win over Penquis of Milo, a team he scouted at Orono last week.

“I wanted to see what defenses they were going to set up in, because that might help me when we play them.”

Kane made his first scouting mission as a freshman, then went to a couple of games during his sophomore season.

“Last year I went a lot more,” he said. “Whenever I didn’t have a game or a practice I’d try to find a game.”

He’s on a similar scouting schedule this year, although the information-gathering process has been refined.

Kane used to keep full shot charts of the teams he scouted, but found he placed too much emphasis on those statistics at the expense of other potentially valuable information.

He still tracks those trends, but spends more time monitoring such things as offensive and defensive sets, individual player tendencies and other information that might make the difference in a close game.

“Sometimes I pick things up like things I can do at crunch time, or special plays the other team runs, or who they go to at crunch time,” said Kane. “And if I recognize something that has to do with somebody else on the court, then I let my teammates know.”

While Kane spends time watching other teams play, he also spends additional time analyzing his own play from videotapes of each Central game made by his father, Dave.

“I go back and look at them a lot,” he said.

Kane plans to study accounting in college, and also hopes to continue playing basketball at the Division III level.

After that, he hopes to put his scouting experience back into use.

“I’d like to coach in high school someday,” he said.

Blue Devils back in business

The Calais Blue Devils figured to have their toughest stretch of the season right at the outset, with a home opener against Class D contender Lee Academy and road tests at up-and-coming Houlton and Downeast Athletic Conference rival Washington Academy of East Machias among their first four games.

So far, so good for the defending Class C state champions, who extended their winning streak to 26 games with a 82-37 win at WA on Monday night.

“We’ve very pleased,” said Calais coach Ed Leeman, whose 4-0 team also has a win over Class D East Grand of Danforth. “We knew we had a pretty good team, but we were down a man [guard Sam Bell was sidelined until recently] and we weren’t sure of our chemistry. I thought if we were 3-1 or even 2-2, that was realistic. Especially after the Lee game, I wasn’t sure where we were at, but give Lee credit, they’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in D.”

Calais barely escaped against Lee, scoring a 70-67 victory in a game in which the Blue Devils trailed in the final minutes.

But the Blue Devils have been on a roll since then, defeating its last three opponents by an average of 41 points with a defensive average of just 36.7 points allowed.

“Coach is always talking about defense,” said senior guard Brandon Tomah. “Out of two hours of practice, we probably work on defense for an hour and a half, and then we work on offense for a half an hour.

“With good defense, offense will come, and we’re getting good looks just by screening and moving.”

Offense hasn’t been a problem for the Blue Devils, who are averaging 76 points an outing.

“If we move, we’re tough to guard because we’ve got five guys who can handle the ball on the court most of the time,” said Leeman. “So if we move and set good screens we’re going to be tough to contain. It’s when we don’t move that we struggle. Anybody can guard that stationary shooter.”

Quick start boosts Trojans

With just Tuesday night’s game against Bucksport remaining before Christmas, the Mount Desert Island boys basketball team is in position to get a strong head start on what is sizing up as a balanced race in the Big East Conference Class B ranks.

MDI took a big step toward that goal with a weekend sweep of Aroostook County rivals Caribou and Presque Isle, defeating Caribou 54-41 on Friday night and Presque Isle 64-53 on Saturday afternoon. That came after a season-opening win at George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill earlier in the week.

“These wins this weekend and [last] Tuesday night were very big for us,” said junior guard Ben Young, “because a lot of people were counting us out, saying we weren’t going to do anything this year. I think we proved a lot of people wrong.”

Many of the Trojans have played together before, just not at the varsity level. Nine members of the current roster comprised the bulk of the junior varsity team a year ago.

“We’re young,” said MDI coach Wilton Jones. “We’ve got seniors, but most of them got their playing time at the JV level last year, so we’re still feeling our way along and getting used to each other, but they’ve played together for a while, too.

“We just hope we’re able to continue to improve and move forward.”