BRADFORD, Vt. — The “Trash Ladies,” as they call themselves, cleaned up on the offensive glass for the Oxbow High girls basketball team on Tuesday night.

The Olympians’ two starting post players, freshman Emerson Fuller and sophomore Libby Swift, each had a double-double to lead No. 7 seed Oxbow past 10th-seeded Bellows Falls, 67-38, in the first round of the VPA Division III playoffs.

Fuller paced the O’s (12-9) with 21 points and 15 rebounds, her 15th double-double in 21 games this season, to go along with four steals and four blocks. Swift poured in a season-high 18 points with 10 boards and two rejections.

“Emerson and I have played together since we were in third or fourth grade,” Swift said. “The fact that we’ve worked together for so many years really helps.”

Oxbow had a 14-12 lead after a quarter before the Trash Ladies — so nicknamed because they “clean out the garbage shots,” in Fuller’s words — really went to work in the second. The Terriers’ tallest player, Laura Kamel, had limited the Olympians in the post early on, but she was on the bench for most of the second quarter after picking up her second foul, and Fuller and Swift feasted.

“It was hard for us to get in front of (Kamel),” Oxbow first-year coach Jay Clark said. “But once we were able to control her, we got one big on one side, one big on the other and then we had somebody coming down the middle. Whenever we shoot, we try to have three under the basket.”

Fuller had 11 points in that quarter alone as Oxbow went on an 18-2 run to open up a 34-19 halftime lead. At times, it seemed as if Fuller and Swift were passing to each other off the rim and backboard before one of them got a layup to drop through the net.

The Olympians continued extending the lead in the second half as sophomore guard Maggi Ellsworth, their leading scorer in the regular season with just over 15 points per game, worked her way into double figures with 10 after a rough early going.

“Maggi pushed the issue,” Clark said. “She made the defense have to guard her. She pushed the ball up the floor, made people guard her, and that opened some other things up.”

Oxbow has started three freshmen and two sophomores for most of the year, with Ellsworth the only returning starter, so the playoff win was an important feather in the cap of such a young group led by a new head coach.

Up next is likely a trip to No. 2 seed Hazen in the quarterfinals on Saturday, with a trip to Barre Auditorium on the line. The Olympians fell to the Wildcats on the road, 52-37, in their second game of the season.

“It’s a really big deal, because playing against seniors was really scary for the first couple games,” Fuller said.

“To win the first playoff game, even if we just win this one, it’s still huge. It proves that you can do it, even if you are younger than the rest of them.”

Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.

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