ORLEANS, Vt. — The Oxbow High School girls basketball team needed to be at the top of its game Tuesday if there was any hope of upsetting undefeated Lake Region in the VPA Division III semifinals.
Instead, the No. 5 Olympians had an off night, falling to the top-seeded Rangers, 62-30.
Lake Region (11-0) looked the part of a front-runner out of the gates, giving the Olympians (8-4) a hard time on defense, forcing turnovers and scoring routinely off transition layups.
Oxbow’s eighth-year coach, Barry Emerson, pleaded with his squad to relax and set up its offense, but it proved a tall order.
“They were actually trying to speed us up, so that we would make more mistakes,” Emerson said. “It was a good game plan for them. … We said at halftime, ‘Set up an offense every time,’ and (the Rangers) just give you that little window to make a break and instead of setting up an offense, we tried to break.”
Oxbow broke into the scoring column when Rachel Spear threw a long pass over Lake Region’s full-court press, connecting with Emma DeGoosh for a layup.
DeGoosh and Emma Parkin both hit jumpers and Arianna Bolles (10 points) scored twice inside, closing the Rangers’ lead down to 15-10 after the first quarter.
The hosts went on to stretch their lead to 16 points before Oxbow’s much-needed 8-0 run. Bolles and Abagail Carson both hit jumpers followed by a pair of free throws and a coast-to-coast layup by Rachel Spear.
Lake Region stole back the momentum, however, with Tia Martinez hitting one of her four 3-pointers to beat the halftime buzzer.
Martinez led all scorers with 20 points. Robin Nelson scored 14 for the Rangers and Sakoya Sweeney added eight.
The Rangers finished with six 3-pointers to Oxbow’s none.
“We have hit a few (3s) during the season, but not a ton,” Emerson said. “The way that they play defense, we were trying to use our man offenses to get inside. We had a really good officiating crew tonight, but it just so happened there wasn’t a ton of fouls called, and that would have maybe made a difference for us trying to get inside.”
The hosts opened up the third quarter on a 14-5 run, subduing Oxbow, a team for whom Lake Region had effectively game-planned, according Rangers coach Joe Houston.
“One of our keys was to limit their dribble penetration,” Houston said. “Make them have to make passes and outside shots, and I thought we did a good job of rotating help on that. And then the other key was to be one-and-done; really hit the defensive boards hard and not let them get any second-chance shots.”
Lake Region was supposed to meet Oxbow a year ago in the semifinals, but COVID-19 forced the two teams to share the D-III crown with Windsor and Thetford.
Playing Tuesday’s semifinal at Barre Auditorium rather than in the Northeast Kingdom likely would have aided the Olympians’ upset bid, but the neutral site is only being used for the state finals this season.
The Rangers will face Vergennes in Saturday’s championship game.
“How we prepare is going to matter because of what those teams’ strengths are,” Houston said. “I know a little bit about each one, but we’ve been trying not to get ahead of ourselves. We can’t remake our team at this point in time. It’s really going to be about a couple of tweaks and just executing our game plan the best we possibly can.”
Oxbow, which defeated Green Mountain in the first round then Stowe via forfeit in the quarterfinals, never quite got into sync on Tuesday.
“It happens when you go to the No. 1 seed, doesn’t it?” Emerson said. “They didn’t do anything that we didn’t think they were going to. We prepared well, we just didn’t execute today. We had to be almost perfect.”
Notes: Both teams shot eight free throws on Tuesday, with Lake Region making four and the Olympians six. … Tuesday marked the O’s third straight trip to the final four; they lost to Thetford in the 2019 title game. … Parkin scored six points, with Spear and DeGoosh chipping in five apiece. … Oxbow’s seniors are Bolles, DeGoosh, Spear and Ellyn Hart.