SOUTH PARIS — There’s a reason free throws are shot each day in practice.
Missed foul shots can often be a team’s downfall. Made free throws can be a saving grace.
Tuesday night, they were both for the Oxford Hills girls’ basketball team. The Vikings struggled from the foul line down the stretch and watched Mt. Blue creep closer and closer. The Cougars got as close as two points before Oxford Hills finally hit a couple of key foul shots. That helped the Vikings earn a 40-35 win.
“The game should have been put away earlier if we could have hit free throws,” said Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier. “We’ve struggled with that a lot this year. We’ve been in the gym shooting as much as we can. Luckily, we did hit some key free throws.”
It was the second straight win for the Vikings. Oxford Hills had stunned previously unbeaten Morse last week and have a little momentum going.
“We did enough to win,” said Pelletier. “That’s two in a row for us. That’s good. It’s a positive thing. For us, it doesn’t feel like we won, but the girls need to realize that they did win.”
The Vikings had missed eight straight free throws in the second half, and six in the fourth quarter. That enabled the Cougars to erase a seven-point lead and make things interesting down the stretch. Mt. Blue got as close as two points in the final minute, but Chrissy Lewis, Alex Rowe and Brooke Murch all hit free throws.
“We got the ball into the right people’s hands,” said Pelletier. “Alex is one of our best free throw shooters, and Brooke is a very good free throw shooter.”
Murch and Ashley West each finished with 12 while Lewis added nine. Mt. Blue (4-9) got nine from Jillian Perron, eight from Miranda Nicely and seven from Gabby Foy.
“I thought the girls did really well,” said Mt. Blue coach Tom Philbrick, whose team lost to the Vikings 42-32 earlier in the season. “They kept their composure and did what we needed to do to try to close it. They used their heads really well.”
The Vikings (6-7) had opened the lead twice in the game but watched the Cougars battle back. A pair of 3’s by West in the first quarter helped Oxford Hills built a 14-4 advantage.
After the Cougars stayed within reach, the Vikings started the second half with eight straight. West had a pair of hoops while Murch and Kelsey DeBlois scored to make it 30-15.
Mt. Blue increased its defensive pressure and started forcing turnovers. The Vikings were plagued by seven in the third and another five in the fourth. The Cougars used a 12-2 run to end the third down just 32-27. Perron had five points during that stretch while Fox, Nicely and Mackenzie Conlogue all chipped in.
A Foy steal to start the fourth cut the lead to 32-29, but the Vikings started to stall and did a nice job setting up a pair of baskets inside to Murch and Lewis to build the lead back to 36-29 while milking the clock at the same time.
“We weren’t getting great looks inside because they were really packing it in hard,” said Pelletier.
The Cougars answered with a jumper from Amy Hilton and two free throws by Perron to make it 36-33 with 1:21 left. Lewis hit a free throw to make it a four-point game, but the Vikings couldn’t pad the lead from the free throw line in the final minute.
“Every time we missed a free throw, we put our heads down and we really needed to pick it up on the defensive end,” said Pelletier.
Mt. Blue took advantage and got a rebound basket by Kayla Newbill to make it 37-35 with 26 seconds left. The Cougars fouled Rowe, who hit one foul shot. Mt. Blue later fouled Murch with six seconds left, and she sank another.
“I still thought we had the shots to do it,” said Philbrick. “They just didn’t fall for us. You’ve got to take your hat off to them. They did what they had to do to win.”
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