Mavericks defeat Porkies

The North Country Mavericks won their lone game of the week as the team defeated the Nashua Porcupines 48-31 in Saco on Friday, December 21.

The team was led by Loden Idler who scored 16 points. Jesse Lee scored 15 points in the win, eight of which came in the second quarter. Ty Murphy scored ten points. John McColly scored five points and Jon Rey Taylor scored two points.

The PCN caught up with McColly, the Mavericks' Captain, after the team's win over Nashua. He shared what he thought was the key to their win.

"I think it was our defense," McColly said. "We kind of stepped it up a couple of times. We had a couple of times when we weren't able to get up but we were able to amp up the intensity."

At times the Mavericks looked like they were in postseason form from a season ago.

"We worked together a little bit," McColly said. "There was just a couple of kids. We have all gotten a little better and the young guys are stepping up."

The team has had to learn a slower paced ball control offense under new coach Ralph Ellsworth. The offense allowed the team to get quality looks at the basket while also forcing the defense to make mistakes.

"I had something similar to this when I was a sophomore and a freshman, but we had kind of gotten away from it," McColly said. "These young guys don't really know that system and it has been a change for them but we are getting the hand of it."

After building a ten point lead at halftime thanks to a 13-2 run in the second period. The Mavericks were only able to score a to point field goal in the third period. The teams defense managed to hold Nashua to six points.

"At least we were able to keep them from scoring as well," McColly said. "We kept it pretty even but we just weren't capitalizing on good opportunities. We were making bad passes and stuff like that."

The team's offense stepped up in the fourth, scoring sixteen points and keeping the pressure on Nashua. The Porkies only scored five in the period.

"We started getting up more, got yelled at a little bit, and we had a couple of fouls go our way to get the momentum," McColly said.