BARRE, Vt. — The heat and humidity generated by warming spring temperatures and a couple of thousand bodies packed into the Barre Auditorium on Thursday drove a gaggle of high school basketball fans out the back door during halftime of the Oxbow-Peoples girls game.

The teenagers stood, almost panting on the cement steps to cool down. Once play resumed, however, it was the top-seeded Olympians who turned cold, nearly handing the fifth-seeded Wolves an upset victory in the VPA Division III semifinals.

Oxbow missed its first 14 field-goal attempts of the third quarter, yet somehow rallied to win, 46-33, and advanced to face second-seeded Windsor in Saturday’s championship game.

“The difference was we finally got rid of the jitters and played the way we should have been playing all game,” said Oxbow coach Barry Emerson. “We didn’t play well most of the night, actually. We played a lot of individual basketball until the fourth quarter.”

Emerson felt his players’ tendency to take the pressure onto single sets of shoulders stemmed from caring, not selfishness. The Olympians, he said, don’t want to let each other down. Their best way to victory, however, is via prolonged offensive sets that tire defenders and open lanes for passes and drives.

Oxbow led, 24-20, at halftime and trailed, 29-27, after three quarters. The Olympians then cranked up their defense and, finally running their offense fully, embarked on a 13-4 run during the final stanza.

“We looked at the score and the time and realized we absolutely had to play good defense,” said Oxbow’s Maggi Ellsworth. “If we can play that kind of defense from the start against Windsor, we’ll be pretty good.”

Ellsworth led Oxbow with 20 points and Braylee Phelps added 13. Sophie Beck led Peoples (16-7) with 11 points and starting point guard Daisy Berg, one of the Wolves’ two starting freshmen, had nine.

The Olympians (20-2) received only a combined six points on 4-of-12 field-goal shooting from post players Libby Swift and Houston McKenna. Their production will likely need to increase Saturday.

Windsor must find a way to limit Ellsworth, who missed last season due to a knee injury and has spent this winter making a ferocious effort to account for lost time.

Willing and able to drive into a crowded lane and absorb repeated fouls while in the air, the senior guard dragged Oxbow back Thursday, as much with attitude as with points, of which she scored eight during the second half.

“She definitely brought the work level up and everyone else matched it,” said Emerson, noting that it’s taken all season for No. 10 to adjust to the physical limitations created by her braced left leg. “All those decisions that she made (in games) before the injury, they’re all different now. But she’s back. She’s there.”

Said Ellsworth: “I’m not as quick as I was, side-to-side and beating everyone down the court. I have to control my pace and make contact first with the defensive player.”

Ellsworth urged the Olympians to go for not just the first open shot, but the best shot. She said doing so and working the ball around, in and out, allowed her to get a sense of People’s intended defense and where it might break down.

“It gives me time to see where the gaps are,” she said. “If we just go one pass and shot, I don’t see what the other team’s going to do with the ball in a certain part of the court.

“During the first half I was shooting when I should have been driving and driving when I should have shot.”

The Oxbow student section chanted Ellsworth’s name as she attempted eight fourth-quarter free throws.

“As much as I try to tune the crowd out, I couldn’t hide my smile at that one,” she said. “It’s great that we can bring that kind of school spirit here.”

Now comes a final and seriously challenging hurdle. Windsor is gunning for its third championship in four years, while Oxbow last claimed one in 2012. The Upper Valley powers didn’t meet during the regular season.

“Being the number one seed is great for your road to the Barre Auditorium, but once you get here, it’s anybody’s game,” Ellsworth said. “Anything happens in this magical place.”

Notes: The crowd was liberally dotted with fans wearing Oxbow basketball jerseys. Ellsworth said her team dug into an athletics storage room and distributed every used top that could be found. Some teenage supporters also wore the vertically striped, purple-and-white warm-up pants used by Olympians’ hoopsters ... Emerson joked that, after a long career coaching many losing Oxbow squads in assorted sports, he’s a bit unsure of his current circumstances. “I don’t know how to coach this team,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve always had underdogs.” ... People’s Academy is in Morristown, Vt., an hour’s drive east of Burlington. The school building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a work of classic revival architecture.

Tris Wykes can be reached at ctwykes@aol.com.