Owego Free Academy | Archive | December, 2012

The Owego Girls Varsity Basketball team pulled away in the second half to comfortably defeat the SV Sabers on Wednesday in a STAC Central Division match-up by a score of 55-35.  The win is the Lady Indians fourth straight, and they improve to 2-1 in league play, one game behind 3-0 Seton.  Early on in this game, SV came out with a lot of energy and out-worked Owego throughout a very
low scoring first quarter.  After jumping out to the early lead 4-3, SV never led again as Owego gained a three point advantage at the half, and ballooned it to 21 in the second half.  The Lady Indians were led on the stat sheet and in the energy department by 9th grader Emily Merrill.  Emily finished  with 15 points, 6 rebounds, and 2 steals.  Complimenting her was Rachel Merrill, who finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 assists.  Of the 32 points that the Merrill sisters put up, 28 of them came in the second half as Owego used its size to dominate play.  Also contributing positively in the victory were Caitlin Watson (2 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 steals), and Olivia Bishop (6 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 steals).

The Owego Lady Indians Varsity Girls Basketball team played very well, and won the 2012 Norwich Pennysaver Tournament over the weekend.  The Lady Indians overwhelmed Sidney on Friday night by a score of 62-25.  After a sluggish start to the game where field goals were at a premium, the Lady Indians exploded in the second and third quarters, scoring 42 points in these two quarters, to put the game far out of reach.  The Indians were led in scoring by Rachel Merrill
and Jill Silvanic, who had 14 and 12 respectively, and other key contributions came from Emily Merrill (8 points, 10 steals, 7 rebounds), Olivia Bishop (9 points, 7 steals), Kira Thalacker (8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 steals), and Ciarra Bodnar (4 points, 3 steals, 2 assists).

The final of the tournament featured a clash with 2-1 Norwich.  Owego managed to jump out to a 7 point halftime lead behind great half court defense, and execution on the foul line.  In the first half, the Lady Indians shot 9-13 from the free throw stripe.  After Norwich took advantage of some Owego foul trouble and cut the lead to one at the end of the third quarter, Owego started the 4th on an 8-0 run to put the game out of reach.  Some key individual contributions came from Rachel Merrill (17 points and 12 rebounds), Jill Silvanic (14 points and 3 steals), Shannon Hilliker (6 points and 8 rebounds), and Emily Merrill (10 points and 6 rebounds).  Solid defensive efforts by Caitlin Watson, Kaylee Miner, Andrea Zlinsky, Sam Slavetskas, and Chelsea Murphy led the way, and kept the Norwich offense at bay.

Owego improves to 3-1 on the season, and returns to action this week with two games:  12/19 at Susquehanna Valley, and 12/22 at Athens.