POLAND — Even though his team was fortunate to be protecting a lead for much of the first three quarters Thursday night, York coach Rick Clark saw no reason to alter his game plan. The Wildcats just needed to execute it better.

Unfortunately for Poland, it all came together for the Wildcats — and fell apart for the Knights — in the fourth quarter.

Poland missed its first nine shots in the fateful final period and York inched away for a 48-39 Western Maine Conference win.

Senior center Emily Campbell paced York with a game-high 21 points and 10 rebounds. Michaella Arsenault led Poland with 15 points and nine rebounds before fouling out with 2:03 remaining. Emily Bolduc, who also fouled out late, added 14 points.

“We scouted them. We knew what they do and we had it pretty well in our head what we had to do,” Clark said. “We really didn’t execute it until the fourth quarter, and then (Poland) started to push it a little faster and it threw them a little out of sync, which is what we wanted in the first place.”

Leading by a point heading into the fourth, York (3-0) widened the margin to five on jumpers by Campbell and Shannon Todd with 3:48 to go. Arsenault finally scored Poland’s first field goal with a steal and layup that made it 38-35 with 3:17, but that’s as close as the Knights (0-3) would get.

York made eight of 12 free throws in the quarter to gradually pull away, while 2-for-14 shooting from the field stymied Poland’s comeback hopes.

“I think getting away from penetration against their zone hurt us,” Poland coach Darren Littlefield said. “We would get the ball to a corner and reverse it, but then be happy to shoot the three. That’s not a very high-percentage shot.”

Poland didn’t shoot a very high percentage in the first quarter, either (20 percent). Arsenault, Kayla Yirrell (11 rebounds) and Lindsay Theriault crashed the offensive boards to give the Knights plenty of second chances, but the bushels of high-percentage shots Poland missed mitigated much of the damage.

“That just sucks the wind out of you and it pumps the other team’s confidence right up,” Littlefield said. “They weren’t very effective boxing out out of their 1-3-1, and that builds up our rebounding stats, but not being able to make the putback off the offensive rebound was crushing.”

The Knights weren’t the only ones missing easy shots early. York held only a 9-6 lead at the end of the first quarter despite forcing nine Poland turnovers.

“We weren’t very efficient breaking their press early,” Littlefield said. “Emily had to do her zig-zags up through the gauntlet of York’s press.”

Clark, a 6-foot-1 senior center, warmed up from the perimeter with 10 points in the second quarter, and her 3-pointer just before the halftime buzzer gave the Wildcats a 25-22 lead.

Poland switched to a zone in the second half and held Campbell scoreless for most of the third quarter. Arsenault gave the Knights their first lead since midway through the first quarter with a 3-pointer that made it 32-29 with 1:24 left in the third.

But Campbell’s first bucket of the second half pulled the Wildcats within one and Paige McElwain’s hoop put them in front for good with 38 seconds remaining in the period.