Hermon girls erupt in 2nd half to beat Presque Isle

Jan. 25—HERMON, Maine — The surging Hermon High School girls basketball team broke open a close game with an 18-1 run spanning the third and fourth quarters and pulled away for a 60-33 Class B North victory over Presque Isle late Monday afternoon.

Hermon is now 10-1 after posting its eighth straight win while Presque Isle, which had won five of its last six, fell to 9-4.

Senior guard Faith Coombs led a balanced attack that produced four players in double figures with 17 points. She also dished out three assists and grabbed two rebounds.

Senior forward Liz Wyman had 13 points, five rebounds and two assists; senior center Meg Tracy had 10 points and 11 rebounds; and senior forward Maddie Lebel registered 10 points and seven rebounds.

Guard Sydney Gallop, also a senior, contributed five rebounds, four points, four assists and three steals.

Presque Isle was led by junior guard Anna Jandreau's 14 points and five rebounds and senior guard Faith Sjoberg's 12 points and three steals. Rossalyn Buck grabbed six rebounds off the bench.

"We started to play some good defense in the third quarter and we knocked down some layups and foul shots," said Hermon coach Chris Cameron. "We missed some high-percentage shots in the first half, we were awful from the foul line [4-for-12] and we weren't really playing great defense."

He added that they tightened up on Presque Isle's shooters, Jandreau and Sjoberg, in the second half in their half-court man-to-man defense and made their high-percentage shots and foul shots.

"Playing good defense and taking our time on offense opened everything up [in the second half]," Wyman said.

Hermon held Presque Isle to an 11-for-50 shooting performance from the floor and 4-for-24 from beyond the 3-point arc.

Wyman had seven points during the 18-1 run and Coombs had five points as Hermon transformed a 26-23 lead into a 44-24 advantage.