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Schools

Canton Girls Basketball Team Falls to OA

The OA Lady Tigers dished out several assists in Friday's victory.

After claiming its second straight Davenport Division championship in a win over Stoughton Tuesday night, the Oliver Ames girls basketball team entered Friday’s game against the looking to improve its tournament seeding.

From the get-go, the Lady Tigers helped their own cause.

Behind Candace Steadman’s 24 points (14 coming in the first eight minutes) OA used a 22-5 first quarter run to set the tempo en route to a 74-40 victory over the Bulldogs at the Nixon Gymnasium to improve to 15-1 on the year (11-1 Hockomock League, 7-0 Davenport). Canton drops to 7-9 with the loss (6-7 League, 4-3 Division).

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“I thought we got off to a really quick start and it’s one of those situations where our defense really got the juices going and gets our offense going,” said OA coach Elaine Clement-Holbrook.

It’s no secret that the Lady Tigers pride themselves on using the transition game and Friday was no exception.

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During that 22-5 first quarter run, OA stole the ball seven times and quickly eased it’s way into transition. During that span, Asia Mitchell dished 4 of her 7 assists, while Caitlyn Abela tallied 5 assists to go along with her double double (14 points, 10 rebounds).

Not to be outdone, the OA bench also contributed with unselfish play. Junior forward Kristin Ellis (4 points) came off the bench with 4 assists and 4 rebounds, while guards Kate Holleran and Jen Byron each dished out three assists.

“The thing I was most impressed with was the number of tremendous passes,” Clement-Holbrook said. “Just looking at the number of assists, we might have broken a record tonight. It was just great in the terms of unselfishness and the will to find each other, especially on the fast-break.”

Canton, however, was able to overcome the first quarter deficit towards the end of the second half going on a 6-0 run to cut the OA lead to 32-16 at halftime. Senior forward Olivia Murphy scored 9 of her team leading 11 points in that second quarter, while Alana Pitts-Anoya scored the team’s last four points of the half, including two free throws after time expired.

But, OA responded to the Canton run out of the locker room to start the second half and created more distance during an 8-0 run in the first four minutes of the third quarter.

“I was real pleased with how our team responded in the second quarter,” said first year Canton coach Caitlin Jamiel. “We cut the lead down to 16 and then they [OA] came out blaring and they didn’t let up. They are such a fast, athletic team and it’s hard to keep up with them.”

With the game well in hand, Clement-Holbrook used her reserves in the last eight minutes to secure the victory.

Canton will need to win three to qualify for the state tournament. That quest begins Tuesday night when they host archrival Stoughton on senior night at 6:30 p.m.

“We have to win three of our next four,” said Jamiel.

“I think we’ll have a very competitive game against Stoughton and we’re still looking to see who we’ll face in the [Hockomock] crossover, which will be an exciting matchup then we have the February winter classic tournament in Westwood and we’re hoping to take both of those games as well and put ourselves in position to advance.”

With its crossover matchup set against Franklin next week (time and place yet to be determined), OA will look to take care of business against Foxborough on senior night Tuesday before turning its attention on the champions of the Kelley-Rex division, which gave the Lady Tigers their only loss of the season back on Jan. 10.

“What we’re trying to do now is establish a rotation where we get some conditioning,” Clement-Holbrook said about her team’s approach before the crossover game.

“Ultimately during the course of the season we had to take our press off early so games kind of got away from the opposition a little sooner than we would’ve liked. So we’re trying to keep things a little more competitive in preparation for the tournament and establish that rotation before we face Franklin again.”

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