OXFORD – The Oxford Academy girls varsity basketball team celebrated a big victory on Wednesday, when the team not only grabbed their first win of the season on their home opener – but also successfully won their first game since Jan. 8, 2014.

The 46 game skid for the program remarkably came to an end on Dec. 7, when Cincinnatus came to town – to which an early lead helped lift the lady Blackhawks to the 45-38 win on the night.

“Well we had a fairly even matchup with Cincinnatus. We put the ball In the basket, that was a big difference,” said Oxford head coach Chris Palmer.

As a team, Oxford would enjoy a 50 percent shooting rate from the foul line, while also managing to get off 20 two-point shots – an impressive number seeing as all nine of the girls who saw action in the win contributed in the points column.

The Blackhawks used an impressive 15-3 lead to open the game up to truly set the tone on the night, something coach Palmer said he believes helped give his squad confidence throughout the remaining periods of play.

“We also out rebounded them 35-30, not a significant margin but still won that battle. We got out to a good start, we were up 15-3 on them at one point. I thought we played pretty good man-to-man defense on them. Getting that lead early, I think that helped our confidence,” said coach Palmer. “One thing about last night, all nine girls that played, scored. It has been a while since we have done that and we passed the ball really well also. Cincinnatus was in a 1-3-1 defense, several times in the second half we were able to pass three or four times and get a shot off in the paint, and Allison Beckwith was one of the main beneficiaries of that – from Hannah Hodge and Ellie Ryan specifically.”

Answering their impressive 23-15 lead at the half, Oxford remained on the offensive posting scores of 7 and 15 points respectively to close out the win. Leading Oxford in the charge was Allison Beckwith, who managed to find herself the leading the team with 14 points.