Oliver Ames Grabs 11th Win Against King Philip

The King Philip girls basketball team came into Friday night's game having to climb a rather large mountain in order to grab a victory over Oliver Ames.

Unfortunately it took almost two and a half quarters for the home team to get into a rhythm on the court. Once they did, it was too late, and the defending state champion Tigers left town with a 73-36 win.

OA was able to knock down ten points before the Warrior’s Katie Brennan hit one of her two free throws to get KP on the board. 

The home team would only score four more points the rest of the first quarter
and would add another six as they went into the locker room trailing 39-11. The Tigers were able to account for a good number of their first half scoring via the fast break transition.

“Defensively, we like to get offense from our defense. It’s all part of our game plan, and we were able to do that tonight,” OA Coach Elaine Clement-Holbrook said.

While the visitors were running up and down the court with relative ease, King Philip seemed to be running in quicksand with nothing getting accomplished n the court.

“Obviously, Oliver Ames is a really incredibly talented team in a great program,” KP Coach Megan Barry said. “They came out with an intensity that we haven’t seen since we played Franklin back in November. It was a different type of basketball than we’ve been used to, and it took us a while to adjust to it.”

As OA opened up a 45-point lead through three quarters of play King Philip was beginning to get into a rhythm and shots finally started to fall. The Warriors outscored the Tigers 19-11 in the final stanza, but at that point they were in too deep of a hole to climb out.

“I was really impressed with them [King Philip] as they never quit and, in the third quarter, they did a really good job at trying to get back into the game,” the OA coach said. “We gave them some open looks and they took advantage of it; they took what we gave them and made something of it. From my perspective, defensively we need to do a much better job at defending the three.”

Oliver Ames was led by Candace Steadman, who had 16 points and Caitlyn Abela with 15. Asia Mitchell would add nine points in the win.  The Warriors scoring
was balanced, with Katie Brennan leading the way with 8; Emily Sullivan added 6,
Ellen Wagner had 5 and McKenzie Richardson had four in the loss.

OA will continue on the road with contests in Attleboro on Wednesday, in Sharon next Friday and at Stoughton next Tuesday; while KP will have yet another intense battle against Franklin Tuesday night.