OA Girls' Basketball Weathers Fourth Quarter Run to Down Sharon

As the old adage goes “a win is a win.”

Despite a 10-0 fourth quarter run by Sharon, the girls' basketball team hung on for a 43-37 victory Tuesday night in its season opener at the Nixon Gymnasium.

OA improves to 1-0 on the young season, while Sharon drops to 0-2.

“Wow, was that ugly,” said a relieved Elaine Clement-Holbrook after coaching her team to victory. “But, we got the victory nonetheless. We have a lot of work ahead of us but at least we’re 1-0 to start the year.”

The first three quarters showed little sign of an OA letdown. During that span, the Lady Tigers forced 11 of the Eagles' 13 turnovers paving the way to a 36-17 lead.

Although OA’s offense had trouble generating some points, the defense held Sharon to 20 percent shooting from the field and 15 percent from three-point land.

“We are an excellent three-point shooting squad,” Sharon coach Kate Horsemann said about her team. “No question we had the cold hand shooting tonight from the three’s and from the field. Hopefully we will start making more shots down the road.”

As senior captain Canadce Steadman (14 points) sat out the entire second quarter due to foul trouble, the Tigers used their depth to their advantage. Forwards Caitlyn Abela (15 points), Lexi Gold (7 points) and Kristen Ellis (5 rebounds) provided a nice presence underneath the boards, while juniors Asia Mitchell and Allie Brennan provided a nice tempo from the backcourt.

By the fourth quarter, however, OA seemed more concerned about scoring and got away from its comfort zone.

“First half defensively, I thought we were a little better than what we were in the second half,” Clement-Holbrook said. “I don’t know if it was more concerned about scoring points then we were about stopping them. The mentality has to be that much more intense defensively for four quarters.”

Behind efforts from sophomore Karlie O’Driscoll (11 points) and junior Katie Lowerre (8 points) Sharon took advantage of OA’s fourth quarter miscues and sliced the double-digit lead to six.

Despite the result, Horsmann thought her team showed some resiliency and overcame some early adversity.

“We are a really young ball club,” she said. “I thought we did a great job [in the fourth quarter]. We finally settled down, got some poise, and we were used to the pressure that they were showing defensively and we made some shots.”

Still eyeing their first win of the year, the Eagles are off until Jan. 3 when they travel to Worcester to face Burncoat High School in a non-league matchup.

OA gets back to work Thursday night at 7:15 p.m. in a non-league matchup with Duxbury at the Nixon Gymnasium.

“We have to go from a team who shoots outside to a team that has some size,” Clement-Holbrook said about Thursday. “So it’s going to be a totally different event from the one we saw tonight.”