BELFAST – Anyone looking for the inside story to Tuesday night’s Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B clash between Mount View of Thorndike and Belfast had only to look in the paint.

Belfast won its first game of the season by decisively winning the the battle of the boards. The result was a 73-60 victory as the Lions improved to 1-1.

Senior center Chad Kosmo, all 6-foot-10 of him, was the Lions’ main man as he outdueled 6-5 Mount View senior forward Kevin Roberts in the lane and finished with 33 points and 17 rebounds – both game highs.

“Me and him are good friends. We’ve played together in AAU and we go at it once in awhile. It’s always a good matchup,” Kosmo said. “This was a big win for us because we needed to rebound after a tough loss.”

Belfast lost in overtime to Camden Hills after shooting 9-for-24 from the free throw line. The tale from the line Tuesday wasn’t much better, but it was better. The Lions shot 19 for 38 from the foul line, but were able to offset that with rebounding and tight, man-to-man defense.

“Foul shooting’s been our Achilles heal,” said Belfast coach Butch Richards. “Fortunately, it didn’t kill us tonight like it did before, but we can’t count on that all the time.”

One thing they can count on is Kosmo, who pretty much had his way inside as he shot 13-for-18 from the floor and grabbed 10 offensive rebounds.

“I think the whole key to the game is the 6-10 kid was in the lane all night long and we couldn’t get him out of there one way or another,” said coach Mike Brown, whose Mustangs drop to 0-2. “We couldn’t handle him …We just had no chance.”

Kosmo wasn’t the only Lion pounding the boards. Junior guard Justin Reynolds came off the bench and grabbed seven rebounds – six in the second quarter – to aid the effort that resulted in a 41-23 team rebounding edge (18-9 offensively).

“We worked a lot on boxing out this week because we knew these guys were just as tall as us,” said Belfast senior guard Sam Hayes, who enjoyed a solid all-around game with 16 points, five rebounds, and four assists.

The Lions got nine points and 12 rebounds from their bench as they were able to continually rotate fresh bodies into the game and use 12 different players.

“Justin is a perfect example of our bench strength,” Richards said. “He didn’t play at all the other night and when Neil Pendleton picked up two quick fouls, we asked him to go in and do it defensively on Roberts. He did that and he had six points besides.”

Roberts was 10-for-17 from the field for 25 points, but was contained on the boards as he finished with eight.

After taking an early 5-0 lead, Mount View battled back and forth before taking another comfortable lead (20-12) with 6:19 left in the first half, but seven straight points knotted things back up again.

Things stayed tight until Belfast used a 16-6 run in the middle of the third quarter to go up 49-35 with 3:48 left in the third. The Mustangs had an answer, however, as senior guard Jonah Brugger (13 points) scored on a give-and-go from the right post and Mount View scored 12 of the final 14 points in the quarter to cut Belfast’s lead to 51-47.

That was the closest Mount View would get as Colby Horne nailed a 3-pointer to open the scoring in the fourth and the Lions scored eight of the first 10 points. Belfast would never lead by less than seven points the rest of the way.

“Knowing we’re gonna play 10, 11, 12 guys, we’re going to try to turn up the defensive pressure and wear some teams down and I think that’s what we did tonight,” said Richards.

Lions 73, Mustangs 60

Mount View (0-2) Belfast (1-1)

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

Kruger 1 6 0 0 2 Robbins 0 0 0 0 0

Williams 2 6 0 0 4 Pendleton 1 1 0 1 2

Potter 0 0 0 0 0 Crofoot 0 0 0 0 0

Carman 0 0 0 0 0 Morley 1 1 0 0 2

Peters 3 9 0 2 7 Cowan 0 0 0 0 0

Brugger 5 11 3 4 13 Duval 3 4 2 2 8

McCorrison 0 0 0 0 0 Hayes 3 6 9 12 16

Bradford 2 2 0 0 5 Horne 2 9 0 6 5

Roberts 10 17 5 10 25 Herbig 0 4 0 0 0

Flewelling 2 3 0 0 4 Reynolds 3 4 0 0 6

Kosmo 13 18 7 15 33

Oxton 0 2 1 2 1

Totals 25 54 8 16 60 Totals 26 49 19 38 73

Mount View 16 26 47 60

Belfast 8 33 51 73

3-pt. goals: Mount View (2-7): Bradford 1-1, Peters 1-4, Williams 0-2; Belfast (2-6): Hayes 1-2, Horne 1-2, Herbig 0-2

Attendance: 800 (est.)

Preliminary: Belfast 70-58