Old Town boys basketball continued its winning ways at home on Saturday afternoon in an overwhelming victory against Maine Central Institute.
Emmitt Byther scored 16 to pace the Coyotes on Saturday, while off the bench Alex Fernandes added eight points toward Old Town’s win.
The Coyotes started the game on a 13-0 run that was the result of great ball movement, little dribbling and, in the end, open shots. MCI played hard, got good looks at the basket but struggled to find the bottom of the net and trailed 16-1 after the first eight minutes.
Fernandes scored a 3-pointer and a mid-range jumper at the elbow to get the team into an offensive rhythm early.
“We’ve been pretty good moving the ball,” Old Town coach Garret Libby said. “When you keep the floor spaced, we seem to find open guys. We have enough guys on the team that can score so they pretty much all trust each other. We find the open guy, get the best look we can and hopefully the ball goes in the hoop.”
Old Town was without Braydon Brown, a senior guard who is one of Old Town’s best scorers, due to an injury, but Libby was impressed with his team’s offensive output on Saturday. In the second quarter, the Coyotes added 20 points and went into halftime ahead 36-11.
“I liked how we played,” Libby said. “We’re missing one of our better offensive players, Brayden Brown, so to be able to still put points on the board without one of our better scorers is a good feeling. It gives our guys confidence moving forward that they can score, too.”
Defensively, Old Town was taking charges, stealing the ball and creating havoc on that side of the ball.
“We’ve said it all year, the biggest thing that feeds us is our defense,” Libby added. “We have a lot of speed and scrappiness so first quarters like that are what we have to do every game and then hopefully carry it over through all four quarters. We want to control the pace through our defense.”
MCI’s Braeden Kennedy scored six points in the second quarter as part of his 11-point performance. Kennedy also had a block and a steal as well as a few rebounds.
Four different players scored 10 more in the third quarter for the Huskies. Still, Old Town continued to score in bunches and Byther poured in six points in the third.
“I find that he’s slowly starting to come into his own,” Libby said of Byther. “He had a good season as a freshman last year and came back this year stronger, motivated and he’s just trying to put the work in and it’s showing on the court.”
Old Town has now won seven games in a row and is 11-2 for the season. The Coyotes have losses to top-ranked Ellsworth (60-58) and to rival Orono (62-52). They have five games left and end the regular season with a rematch against Orono on the road.
With the loss, MCI falls to 2-10.
