SOUTH CHINA -- A year old and presumably wiser, the Oak Hill girls basketball team may finally have turned a corner.

Forced to watch as an energetic Erskine squad whittled a double-digit deficit down to just a few points in the closing minutes, experience paid off for the Raiders on Friday night. Seniors Ambyr Provost and Carrie Hayden turned in solid efforts in the paint in the late going, and Oak Hill opened the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B season by holding off the Eagles for a 52-41 road victory.

Provost and Hayden each had 14-point nights, with more than half of that output coming in the fourth quarter. Guard Alexandra Donald also finished with 14 points.

"We just kicked it into gear and decided to pull out the win," Provost said. "I guess we've kind of learned how to deal with the stress that comes with two minutes left and up by 10 -- and then only being up by five."

Oak Hill's lead ballooned to its largest of the night at 43-30 when Provost banked one off the glass with three minutes remaining, but Erskine immediately clawed back. Kaci Hudson, who had a game-high 16 points in the loss, answered Provost's bucket 11 seconds later. Then the Eagles converted a pair of Raider turnovers into 3-point buckets from Ashley Clark (seven points) and Jessica Souther -- slashing the Oak Hill lead to five with 1:49 remaining.

Provost and Hayden collected the troops, however, combining to score nine of the game's final 12 points to put it away. All of those points were scored in the paint.

Oak Hill coach Dan Sabine said he didn't need to say anything to his veteran club under the duress.

"I didn't even talk about it," Sabine said. "They knew. The problem was that it just took them a little longer to figure out what they needed to do."

Erskine coach Scott Corey promised in the preaseason that his team would work hard to the bitter end, and that's just what the young Eagles did on opening night. They showed great composure at a time when all seemed hopeless.

Erskine's Megan Helm, who finished with nine points, rattled home a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded to end the first half with the teams deadlocked at 19-19.

But Oak Hill opened the third quarter in a full-court press that forced the Eagles into five turnovers in the period and held them scoreless for the first four minutes.

The 16-4 Raider run that extended through the first minute of the fourth quarter simply put Erskine in too big of a hole.

Something the Raiders weren't able to do last season.

"We just kind of realized that we needed to step it up and play harder," Provost said.

Travis Barrett -- 621-5648

tbarrett@centralmaine.com