Dominant first quarter against Mansfield keeps Foxboro (14-1) rolling

MANSFIELD — With a dominant first quarter, Foxboro must have felt like Friday night’s girls basketball game with Mansfield would be a cakewalk.

It wasn’t.

But while the host Hornets made Foxboro work, the Warriors still earned the 50-41 win.

Foxboro improves to 14-1, while Mansfield drops to 10-4 after the Hockomock League showdown.

On a balanced scoring night for Foxboro, Cam Collins led the way with 16 points, while Kailey Sullivan added 15. Ava Hill added nine points and Addie Ruter had eight.

Foxboro led 22-3 after a quarter, but Mansfield never gave up.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t our night to make layups,” Foxboro coach Lisa Downs said. “We must have left about 16, 18 points out there that were just layups. But it’s a learning experience. We need to make sure that we’re always keeping possession of the ball and really value the ball on offense. Defensively, I thought we had a good game. We could have fouled a lot more in the second half than we did and just play smarter defense. Those are things we have to correct.”

Foxboro jumped out to an 8-0 lead, then closed the first quarter on a 14-0 run. Collins banged in a 3-pointer, as did Hill. Ruter had a putback and a short jumper, and Collins closed the quarter with a driving layup.

Collins found several ways to score, and played tough defense on the other end.

“She is (a special player),” Downs said of Collins. “She can just do it all. She didn’t have a great shooting night, but she does everything else out there well. If she’s guarding you, you’re working that night.”

“It was good preparation for the tournament,” Collins said. “There are always things to work on. They worked hard. We worked hard as well. It was a well-competed game.”

Mansfield really showed its compete level the rest of the way. The Hornets battled back to get the score down to 29-16 at the half. Kara Santos was effective on the low block, and finished with 14 points for the Hornets.

The Hornets were able to slice the deficit to 33-25 in the third quarter, but Foxboro responded with an 8-2 run, punctuated by an old-fashioned three-point play from Sullivan, who had eight points in the quarter.

Santos led a run that had Mansfield down eight in the fourth, but Collins hit a jumper to help quell those comeback dreams.

Downs was encouraged by how her team responded to the Mansfield rallies.

“It’s huge, because if you’re not challenged, you’re not going to grow,” Downs said. “The teams make us a little uncomfortable, a little off-kilter because we’re going to be facing that every game in the postseason, and the Comcast tournament is not that far away, as well.”

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