Wolverines Fall To #1 Ranked Hargrave, Bounce Back With Big Win At National Prep Showcase

The Bridgton Academy Wolverines suffered their first loss of the season on Friday against #1 ranked Hargrave Military Academy 76-74 on a buzzer beating 25 foot 3 pointer. The game had been close throughout the contest with Hargrave maintaining a slight edge most of the game including taking a 41-36 lead into halftime. Head Coach Whit Lesure said, "I was happy with the way we played the end of the first half and the start of the second, Dwayne Smith's effort stood out to me."

The Wolverines made some adjustments in the second half and after a big three pointer late from Malik Stith the Wolverines found themselves with a two point lead. With 3.5 seconds remaining Hargrave in bounded the ball from just over half court and connected on a contested 3 point attempt from about 25 feet out. Lesure noted, "It's a tough loss. But we don't have the time to analyze it now. Give their kid Riley credit for making a terrific clutch shot."

Malik Stith who lead the Wolverines in scoring with 19 points looked at the game as a good measuring stick for his team early in the season, "We realize we can play with anyone when we play our game but it's going to take two strong halves to do it. Even tonight I think we are just beginning to realize our potential, we just need to keep working hard and getting better as a team."

Rounding out the scoring for the Wolverines was Dwayne Smith with 18 points, Chad July 10, Kauri Black 8, Jamal Crook 7, Justin Rake, Carl Blair 4, and Jack Houpt 3.

Bridgton Academy found themselves back in action on Saturday when they faced Champlain, a team from the Montreal area in Canada. It was clear early on that the Wolverines were eager to get back to their winning ways as they were able to establish a lead early and never look back winning by a final score of 65-46.

Coach Lesure described the game as, "A good win for us" adding "I felt like when Malik (Stith) finished our shootaround in the morning with a made free throw, our team got past yesterdays defeat."

The Wolverines built up an 11 point half time lead (36-25) and held Champlain to just 21 points in the second half. "We expected Champlain's competitiveness. Our bench played their butts off in the 2nd half. Crook and Gross gave us a huge lift, and Blair settled us down at the point."

Wolverines Guard Jamal Crook commented on the game saying, "We rebounded from last nights game strong, we got off to a little bit of a slow start in the first half but we picked things up pretty quick. We just made sure to stick to what we know can help win us basketball games and thats our team defense."

Teammate Garrison Gross followed by saying, "I think we're coming together as a team. We showed we can rebound from a tough game and make the adjustments we need to make to get better. It's still early in the season so we just want to work on getting better and better."

Crook led the Wolverines in a balanced scoring attack with 12 points, followed by Carl Blair with 9, Justin Rake, Chad July, and Dwayne Smith with 8 apiece, Kauri Black 7, Malik Stith 6, Jack Houpt 5, and Bryant Avent 2.

The Wolverines will head into the break with a 4-1 record and are off until December 7th when they will face Winchendon School at the Wolverdome, tip off is at 1 p.m.