The Rangeley senior learned Friday she was just two points shy of scoring her 1,000th point. An expected two-game weekend series with Vinalhaven was postponed, giving Esty until Tuesday night to dwell on it.

“I almost wanted to get it over with,” Esty said. “This season, the focus is more about we’re going for the Gold Ball sort of thing. I didn’t want this to be a distraction.”

It didn’t take Esty long Tuesday to reach that milestone. Just eight seconds into the game, she became just the fourth player for Coach Heidi Deery to reach 1,000 points, joining Karen Spaulding, Sarah Drosdik and Krysteen Romero.

“I couldn’t have done it without my teammates and the guidance of my coaches,” Esty said. “It’s nice. I don’t really have the words for it.”

Esty finished with eight points as the Lakers remained unbeaten with a 69-25 win over Buckfield.

Esty scored her two points following the opening tap. She took the ball to the basket but was fouled. It wasn’t exactly the way she had envisioned scoring her milestone points.

“I thought it was going to be a layup or a shot,” Esty said. “I didn’t think I was going to get fouled.”

It put her at the line with all eyes upon her. She swished the first and sank the second.

“I was honestly really nervous,” said Esty, who got a standing ovation from the crowd, including her future teammates at Central Maine Community College. “I was afraid I was going to hit one foul shot and miss the next or one or the other. I just tried to relax. When the ball came back, I just tried to relax again because I had one more. Blayke (Morin) was like ‘You’re halfway there.’ I was like ‘deep breaths, breathe, just one more.'”

Esty got a hug from her teammates as the game was halted momentarily. She rushed into the crowd to hug her mom while the fans cheered.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” said Deery, who has had Esty on the squad since her eighth-grade year. “She’s made a lot of advances in her game as far as intensity on both ends of the floor. That’s what we really need from her against some of good teams.”

Esty had six of her team’s 15 points in the first quarter as the Lakers (10-0) opened a quick 15-4 lead. Though the Lakers were plagued by turnovers and a pesky Buckfield defense, Rangeley was still able to open the lead with an 11-2 run to finish the first quarter.

In addition to Esty’s points, Maddison Egan had four points in that quarter while Seve Deery-DeRaps had the first of her six 3’s. She’s also committed to CMCC.

Rangeley had the lead up to 36-8 by halftime. Deery-DeRaps had 11 of her game-high 22 in the second, including a trio of 3’s. Then in the third, Morin had eight points for the Lakers. She finished with 18, including 14 in the second half.

The Bucks had a bit of an offensive spurt in the third with five points from Naudia Wesley and four from Alexis Bennett. Bennett led the Bucks (5-7) with eight points while Kali Litchfield added six.

“We try to look for parts of the game where we can take away positive things,” said Buckfield coach Ryan Wilkins. “I think we had a few of those — a few more than what we had when we went up there. The whole game is a teaching moment.”

The Bucks lost at Rangeley earlier in the year, 67-24. Buckfield is in the hunt for a tourney berth in Western D and is currently in the seventh spot. Though matchup up with the top-seeded Lakers was a tall order for the Bucks, it was an opportunity to measure up and build from.

“The whole game is a teaching moment,” Wilkins said. “There’s always something these kids can work on, whether it’s something they haven’t been taught or they aren’t sure how to react to certain situations.”

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