Oceanside holds off Freeport

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It was a night of celebration for the Oceanside girls’ basketball team last Friday, as the Sailors beat Freeport, 49-43, and sophomore guard Brianna Amenta was awarded a plaque to commemorate her placement on the list of the top 100 players on Long Island.
Despite the warranted attention to Amenta, head coach Jared Stoler was impressed with how the entire roster stepped up to the occasion in the Conference AA-1 matchup.
“This performance was pretty extraordinary on all ends,” Stoler said after Oceanside improved to 4-5 in AA-1 and 6-7 overall. “While the ball is always in Brianna’s hands and she did great helping us out offensively, Julia Lane was a monster down low and she had six or seven blocks,” he added. “Everyone stepped up.”
Amenta led all scorers with 24 points, and she scored in a wide variety of ways, as she got to the rim well and also hit a pair of 3-pointers. Lane, a senior, did in fact have 7 blocks, as she was the perfect safety valve for the Sailors D when the top of their zone broke down.
The Sailors started the game out in control of the pace and the scoreboard, as they were 20-9 following the first half. They maintained this lead for nearly the entirety of the game until midway through the fourth quarter when Freeport stormed back and made it a one-possession game. The hemorrhaging of the lead seemed to ignite something for the Sailors, as they locked in and closed the game out, despite Amenta fouling out.

“We did an exceptional job in the last three minutes,” Stoler said. “In a perfect world, we wouldn’t have let it get there and we certainly a little too interesting, but I really happy with the way we were able to close out the game.”
A good amount of the credit for the late game execution goes to senior Samantha Reyer, as she was the go-to scorer for the Sailors with the game on the line. She showcased the ability to both get to the rim and also pull up off the dribble.
For Freeport (6-6 overall, 5-4 in AA-1), it was simply too little too late. The Red Devils, who beat Oceanside in the first meeting 40-35 back on Dec. 18, battled all the way.
“We definitely fought back and got them on their heels we just didn’t finish with the intensity we needed to finish the job,” Freeport head coach Meredith Jones stated. “We had a couple of different lineups because of injuries and whatnot, but there’s still a lot more fire that they could’ve played with.”
A big part of the second-half push was sophomore guard Ania Crocker, who scored most of her 17 points in the last 16 minutes. Another key catalyst was senior forward Windney Destin, who had 10 points as well as being a mainstay on the offensive glass. As Jones said, “Windney is fierce on the boards without even being that tall.” Senior Ancksu Dixon was the chipped in 8 points.