Freeport holds off Oceanside

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Struggles from the foul line and an inability to win close games plagued Freeport in December, but the Lady Red Devils bucked both trends in their first January game at the expense of Oceanside.

Junior guard Deavion Peterson exploded for a game-high 29 points and sophomore forward Taylor Abraham added 18 to lead visiting Freeport to a thrilling 66-62 victory over the Lady Sailors in a Conference AA-I matchup on Monday afternoon.

Peterson’s last basket put the Lady Red Devils ahead for good with 1:05 remaining in a frantic fourth quarter. Each team led twice in the final three minutes. Oceanside got 28 points from sophomore Jamie Behar and 20 from sophomore Gina Contorno.

“This was our best free-throw shooting game we’ve had since early December,” said Freeport head coach Meredith Jones, who noted her team entered the game hitting approximately 50 percent from the charity stripe. “We missed a few late ones to make me nuts, but we had a strong game overall,” she added.

Oceanside, which led 8-3 early but trailed by nine at halftime and by as many as 10 in the third quarter, got go-ahead baskets by junior Katie Morgan and Contorno in crunch time but couldn’t hold on.

“It’s heartbreaking because we played so hard,” Lady Sailors first-year head coach Jared Stoler said. “It really just came down to one play here and one play there.”

The second half was loaded with big plays and clutch shots. Trailing 33-23 a minute into the third quarter, Oceanside (4-4 overall, 0-2 in AA-I) chipped away while Behar was being treated for a minor cut on her nose. Contorno had three baskets and senior Jordyn Palumbo knocked down four free throws and the deficit was down to four when Behar returned.

Behar’s three-point play brought the hosts within 37-36 and the teams traded baskets until senior Kasey Flavin gave Oceanside a 46-44 lead late in the quarter. Then Peterson hit a trey to give Freeport (4-6 overall, 1-2 in AA-I) a one-point lead heading into the fourth.

“Deavion has taken her game to another level,” Jones said of Peterson, who came into Monday’s game averaging 9.2 points. “She playing with so much confidence and intensity. It’s rubbing off on everyone else.”

Abraham, who was particularly accurate from the line, going 10-for-14 — the Lady Red Devils were 13 of 18 overall for 72.2 percent — opened the fourth with a trey and senior Roseanne Hylton added a couple of slick scoring moves and the margin swelled to 54-49.

However, Oceanside had more gas in the tank. Behar had a pair of treys in the fourth, and Morgan scored five of her seven points down the stretch to make it another nailbiter for Freeport.

Juniors Tiona Parker and Bianca Benjamin chipped in six points apiece for the Lady Red Devils.

“We needed this one,” said Jones, whose team lost tight conference games to Farmingdale and Massapequa. “We’ve worked on surviving runs. Oceanside kept coming back, but we kept our heads up and found a way to come out on top.”