For the girls basketball notes this week (which run each Thursday in the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal) I talked to Lawrence coach Jason Pellerin. The Bulldogs are looking strong defensively and have a key matchup Thursday at home against Messalonskee.

Here's a preview of the article:

It's early, but you have to respect what Lawrence is doing on defense. The Bulldogs are off to a surprising 2-1 start, and are allowing a stingy 28 points per game.

"No. 1, the girls are working really hard," Lawrence coach Jason Pellerin said. "Fundamentally, our stances are good. They're just really taking it upon themselves, each and every kid, not to get beat off the dribble, to get into the passing lanes.

"It's been very small things, but when done every possession, it's either speeding teams up or wearing on them."

You can read the entire Lawrence item, as well as the entire notebook, in Thursday's Morning Sentinel. Travis Barrett will have a notebook for Augusta-area teams in Thursday's Kennebec Journal.

Here's another item I couldn't get into the paper, on the Mt. Abram girls. The Roadrunners were hounded by injuries in preseason, but things are looking better in that area.

"We're getting there," Mt. Abram coach Doug Lisherness said. "We're getting healed up and getting stronger."

Kylie Rolbiecki, who was out with mononucleosis, has played the last two games, and Lisherness said she looks stronger every game and every practice.

Lisherness still believes the Roadrunners can play with anybody in the league, but right now is looks like almost anybody can play with anybody in the league.

"Three games into the season, we were the only undefeated team in our Mountain Valley Conference," Lisherness said. "We lost to Jay on Monday, so there are no undefeated teams in our conference. I've never seen that (this early) in all my years of coaching."

Of course, with all these close games, little things will become more important. One little thing Mt. Abram wants to improve on is layups. Lisherness estimates his team is missing nearly 20 layups per game.

"What I told the girls is that it's good that we're getting the opportunity to take that many layups," Lisherness said.

Mt. Abram is at Winslow's Holiday tournament Dec. 26-27. Lisherness said that if Friday's home game with Hall-Dale is snowed out, the game will be made up Saturday night. If that's the case, the Roadrunners will face three games in four days right before Christmas.