BRADFORD, Vt. — Clutch free throw shooting down the stretch of Tuesday’s VPA Division III first-round playoff game earned the Oxbow High girls basketball team a trip to the quarterfinal round to face top-seeded Hazen.
The No. 8 Olympians (8-13) hit 9 of their 15 free throw attempts in the fourth quarter to ice the 38-30 victory over No. 9 Montpelier (5-15). The Solons had no choice but to commit several late fouls, but Oxbow closed the door, led by Mariah Shumway’s five late free throws.
The Solons amassed a nine-point first-quarter lead thanks in part to their 2-2-1, full-court press. They forced the Olympians to throw the ball away, then commit a 10-second backcourt violation before coach Barry Emerson called a timeout to narrowly prevent another 10-second call.
The Olympians seemed to solve the press from that point on, but the Solons kept it on in an effort to exhaust their hosts over time.
“It did control tempo a little bit, but they weren’t really getting points off it,” Emerson said of the consistent pressure. “I told my assistant coach, who does a lot of my substitutions, ‘They’re just trying to wear us down, so we’ve got to make sure we stay fresh out there.’ And we did, we subbed quite a bit.”
Oxbow scored its first bucket with 2:32 left in the opening quarter when Tiffany Longmoore (10 points) hit a foul-line jumper that ignited the home crowd. She followed it up moments later with a 3-pointer, accounting for all of her team’s first-quarter offense.
Tuesday’s tilt was Oxbow’s second home playoff game during Emerson’s tenure.
“This is my sixth year here,” he said. “I hosted a home game here my very first year and, we haven’t hosted a home game since. … For these girls to have a home game was a big deal.”
Oxbow, which lost to eventual champion Windsor in last year’s quarterfinals, will play at No. 1 Hazen (19-1) at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The Wildcats, who lost only to No. 2 Thetford, didn’t face the Olympians during the regular season.
“The one nice thing is that no one expects us to win,” Emerson said. “We’re the eight and they’re the one. I think we can do some game planning and hopefully catch them off guard a little bit.”
Oxbow’s scoring was balanced as usual, with contributions from Emma Parkin (seven points), Kaysea Neal (six), Rachel Spear (five), Shumway (five), Lauren Wright (four) and Arianna Bolles (one).
Notes: Montpelier was led by Mikaela Luke-Currier and Aaliyah Shannon, who both scored eight points. … Tuesday marked a rubber match between two evenly matched teams — both earned road victories during the regular-season series. … Oxbow bounced back from a five-game slide to close the regular season. … The 11-team field this year in D-III gave the top four teams a first-round bye.