LEWISTON — In Lewiston High School’s climb to KVAC boys’ basketball contention a year ago, failure to sink open, outside shots was a pitfall and turnovers were a downfall.

Friday night, the shots started falling and the number of miscues sank dramatically. It was the recipe for a 57-46 opening-night win over Oxford Hills.

Five different Blue Devils nailed a 3-pointer in the second half, three of them bringing those heroics off the bench.

Senior starters Shawn Ricker and Cody Mousseau and junior reinforcements Josh Thomas, Abdi Hussein and Luke Cote provided the long-range lightning. That depth and balance trumped a 21-point, 12-rebound, four-block night by the Vikings’ Josh MacDonald.

“We felt good about our junior class coming up and being able to help us,” Lewiston coach Tim Farrar said. “Last year, we did a good job playing defense and rebounding, but that was our entire offense.”

Thomas and Steven Patrie led Lewiston with 10 points each. Cote and Donne Agossou dropped in eight apiece. Point guard Ricker coupled his six points with five assists.

Lewiston never trailed after scoring the final seven points of the opening quarter, overcoming foul trouble by taking care of the basketball and then catching fire from the perimeter.

The Blue Devils committed only nine giveaways.

“Last year I’m pretty sure we had one game with 30 turnovers,” Ricker said. “You’re not going to win when you do that.”

Living the downtown life in the third quarter was timely for Lewiston, because it coincided with Oxford Hills’ most prolific period.

Thanks in part to Mousseau and Patrie each picking up their third personal foul in the first two minutes, McDonald and Deric Hanscom enjoyed a dominant spell in the low post.

MacDonald had nine points in the quarter, reducing a 25-20 halftime deficit to as few as three points.

But bombs by Ricker, Hussein and Thomas in an 87-second span quickly fattened the advantage to 10.

“We see them enough, both in the league and all summer long. We knew who their shooters were,” Oxford Hills coach Scott Graffam. “When we made them run their offense for 30 seconds at a time, we did OK. They like to get out and run.”

Oxford Hills dropped the deficit back to four on the shoulders of MacDonald, Hanscom and two buckets by Josh Ferguson.

Thomas answered with a drive in the final minute to make it a 43-37 Lewiston edge.

Mousseau landed his 3-pointer to christen the fourth, and Lewiston’s lead never again dropped below seven.

“It’s always good to win your first game. It was a real team win,” Agossou said. “Now we just have to correct the things we did wrong and hope to do it better.”

Defense rarely betrayed Lewiston in its Class A tournament run a year ago.

It was solid once again for starters in 2011-12. Oxford Hills went the entire second quarter without a field goal. Subtracting the third quarter, the Vikings went 6-for-33 from the floor.

“I said I felt like we can compete, and we did,” Graffam said. “Whenever Josh was out of the game, we had trouble rebounding.”

Lewiston grabbed 17 offensive boards and made MacDonald work for his points despite the absence of senior forward and three-year starter Corbin Hyde, who is nursing a shoulder injury.

“MacDonald is a workhorse. In the second half we dug down and got after him,” Ricker said. “I think in time, once we get Corbin back, (the interior defense) will get even better.”

Hanscom had nine points and Ferguson eight for the Vikings.

Oxford Hills scored 12 of its 20 first-half points from the free-throw line and was in the double-bonus for the final six minutes. Still, the Vikings could only pull even at 17 on a MacDonald free throw with 5:47 left.

Patrie restored the Lewiston lead. Ricker’s first 3-pointer of the night and a traditional 3-point play from Thomas yielded a 25-20 lead.

“Our defense gave up 10 points and our fouling gave up 10 points,” Farrar said. “We took care of that and started moving the ball around on offense.”

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