That was Julia Champagne’s mindset at halftime Friday.
The Brunswick senior had been shut out in the first half in an Eastern Class A quarterfinal game against Oxford Hills. But the KVAC’s second-leading scorer didn’t stress about it.
“I wasn’t really worried about the points,” Champagne said. “It was a really close game. As long as we were winning it was fine. As long as we were playing good as a team.”
The Dragons were down one at the half, but Champagne picked up her game in the second half. She scored all 14 of her points after the break to lead Brunswick to a 37-32 win over the defending Eastern Class A champion Vikings.
“I think Julia realized she was a senior and that there was 16 minutes to go and that she needed to pick it up,” Brunswick coach Sam Farrell said. “She made a conscious decision that she wanted to play more.”
Brunswick advances to next Wednesday’s semifinal game. It was just the second quarterfinal win for the Dragons since 1987. The last one came in 2011.
While the future St. Joseph’s College player got rolling in the second half, the Vikings couldn’t do the same. Oxford Hills, which beat the Dragons twice in close regular season games, was down by four after three quarters and trailed by as many as seven in the fourth.
“It’s been a struggle for us at times to score 40 points,” Oxford Hills coach Nate Pelletier said. “Every game, every team’s in it. We’ve just been able to pull those out. Tonight, things weren’t rolling our way.”
The Vikings were plagued by turnovers. Brunswick’s defensive pressure helped force nearly 20 turnovers. Oxford Hills had four in the final quarter and shot just 1-for-8 in the fourth.
“They were able to put some pressure on the ball and we turned it over a lot more than we normally do,” Pelletier said. “Usually a team that traps us all over the place, we’ll get some layups. Early in the game, we got some layups. For some reason, their pressure hurt us in the end.”
Mikayla Morin led the Vikings with 10 points. Tianna Sugars had nine points, nine rebounds and six steals. Anna Winslow finished with five points and was in foul trouble. She fouled out late in the fourth.
“She’s a heck of a player,” Farrell said. “She’s had four years of whipping our butts. Getting her in foul trouble helped a lot.”
In addition to Champagne’s 14 points, Madeline Suhr had 11, six rebounds and five steals. Sabrina Armstrong added six points.
“This is just a good team win for us,” Champagne said. “We had such a good week of practices. That’s what made us play this way. Everybody contributed in their own way. It’s just a great feeling.”
Oxford Hills (15-4) had a 15-14 lead at the half after a Morin 3 put the Vikings ahead with 11 seconds left. Suhr had scored eight points for the Dragons (12-7) in the first half while Champagne had just three shots from the floor.
“I wasn’t looking for the shot,” Champagne said. “I was a little bit nervous coming out. Everyone was giving me the ball and telling me to shoot. I finally started shooting in the second half, and they started going in.”
Champagne scored nine points in the third and led Brunswick on a 7-0 run to finish the quarter up 28-24. The Dragons hit five of their first eight shots in the third and finished 6-for-10 while the Vikings were 3-for-13 with five turnovers.
Brunswick opened the lead to 32-25 with 6:35 left on a Champagne short jumper. With the Dragons slowing the pace of the game down and the Vikings struggling offensively, that was a significant deficit.
After a free throw by Sugars, Erin Morton scored on a drive to make it 32-28 with 4:20 left. Then Alyssa Hanley sank a pair of free throws to get it within 32-30 with 2:44 remaining.
That’s when Adrianna White hit a huge corner jumper for a 34-30 lead with 2:26 left. Oxford Hills got within 34-32 with 1:51 remaining on two free throws by Morin, but the Dragons finished the game off. Emily Black sank two free throws and Champagne added another in the final minute.
“Adrianna hit a big shot,” Farrell said. “She’d never played in the tournament before. Madeline had some big shots. It’s defense and defense turns into good offense.”
Though the Vikings, which had the best defense in the KVAC, had some key steals in the final minutes, Oxford Hills couldn’t convert. The Vikings missed some opportunities to trim the lead, including an open layup.
“We were down two and we rimmed out a 3 that I thought was in,” Pelletier said. “We got a couple of tips for layups that we missed. We just couldn’t tie it back up. I felt like if we could have tied it back up and got some momentum it probably would have been our game.”
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