When you look at the successful high school sports programs in Vermont, they all have one thing in common — continuity in coaching and player development.
However, it takes time and patience to build a successful team, not to mention being fortunate enough to have some good athletes at your school.
The Bellows Falls girls’ basketball team has some good athletes on the team this season, but it is a young team of sophomores and juniors with new coaches — head coach Dennis Fitzgerald and assistant coach Sandy Smidutz.
“We’re rebuilding this year,” said Fitzgerald after his team’s 52-40 loss to the Arlington Eagles at Holland Gymnasium on Jan. 14. “Last year, we were 3-18. Our first goal is to learn the game. Our second goal is to have fun. And our third goal is to win more than three games.”
The Terriers are close to achieving the third goal with wins against Twin Valley, Mill River, and Mid-Vermont Christian so far this season. Those teams, especially Twin Valley and Mill River, are also struggling to learn and improve as Bellows Falls is struggling to learn and improve.
Against Arlington, the Terriers showed flashes of potential. Defensively, they gave the Eagles fits as the two teams played to a 10-10 tie after one quarter.
But the combination of the Terriers not making their shots and picking up fouls to give the Eagles multiple trips to the free throw line added up to 21-14 lead for Arlington at halftime, and a 44-23 lead after three quarters.
The free throw disparity was a big one. Arlington attempted 30 free throws, and made 18 of them. BF had four attempts, and made only one free throw.
A late surge in the fourth quarter by the Terriers made the outcome a little more respectable, but it was clear that this is a team that is learning as it goes in the hope that the hard lessons learned this season will translate into success next season.
BF junior forward Laura Kamel led the Terriers with 14 points, while sophomore guard Izzy Stoodley added 10 points. Arlington had only three players in the scoring column as Sidney Herrington had a game-high 25 points and Lily Hosley and Taylor Wilkins added 14 and 13 points, respectively.
Girls’ basketball
• After a 40-32 win over Long Trail on Jan. 10, Leland & Gray hit the mid-point of the season with a 9-1 record and firm control of the No. 2 spot in the Division IV standings, just one game behind undefeated West Rutland. Against Long Trail, Maggie Parker scored 15 points to lead the Rebels. Samantha Morse added 12 points.
• Freshman guard Reese Croutworst connected on a last-second three-pointer in overtime to give Brattleboro a 34-31 road win over the Springfield Cosmos on Jan. 9. Croutworst led the Colonels with a season-high 16 points, and Mallory Newton chipped in seven points. Springfield’s top player, Macie Stagner, led the Cosmos with 14 points before fouling out early in the fourth quarter.
Two nights later, the Colonels suffered a 57-22 loss to St. Johnsbury. Hayden Wilkins led the Hilltoppers with 17 points. The Colonels ended the week at 4-7 with a 52-31 loss to Fair Haven on Jan. 14.
• Mill River ended a 34-game losing streak with a 30-6 win over Twin Valley on Jan. 9 in Jacksonville. Mill River had an 18-6 lead at the half and held the Wildcats scoreless in the second half. A 17-7 loss at Rivendell on Jan. 14 left the Wildcats with a 0-5 record so far this season.
Boys’ basketball
• Bellows Falls got a big win on Jan. 10 with a 58-55 victory over Springfield before a full house at Holland Gymnasium.
BF led 29-23 at the half, but Springfield kept it close in an intense game befitting the long rivalry between these two schools. Jake Moore scored 13 points and Jamison Nystrom added 12 points to lead the Terriers, while Carson Clark had a game-high 18 points for the Cosmos.
• Brattleboro defeated Woodstock, 63-44, on Jan. 10. The visiting Colonels got 18 points from Tate Chamberlin along with 12 points from Paul McGillion and 11 points from Cam Frost. The Colonels are now 6-3.
• Leland & Gray lost to Rivendell, 69-48, on Jan. 10 but then took advantage of a shorthanded Mill River squad to beat the Minutemen, 65-35, on Jan. 13 in Townshend. Parker Jennings scored 21 points, including four three-pointers, to lead the 4-3 Rebels to the win.
• Twin Valley lost to Arlington, 56-34, on Jan. 10 to fall to 1-7 on the season.
Boys’ hockey
• Brattleboro came back from a three-goal deficit to beat Milton, 5-4, on Jan. 10. Evan Wright, who had two goals and two assists, got the game-winning goal in the third period to cap off the Colonels’ rally. Alex Dick added a pair of goals and two assists, and Henry Schwartz also scored for the Colonels. With an 8-4 win over Burlington on Jan. 14 at Withington Rink, the Colonels are now 3-6-1 on the season.
• A spaghetti dinner to benefit the Brattleboro Union High School varsity boys’ ice hockey team will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26, at the Brattleboro Elks on Putney Road from 6 to 8 p.m. Take-out will also be available.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for children under 12. Members of the hockey team will be the servers, while desserts will be provided by their parents and a prize raffle will be held during dinner. Dinner and raffle tickets can be purchased in advance from members of the hockey team, or at the door.
Girls’ hockey
• Brattleboro lost a heartbreaker on Jan 11 with a 5-4 overtime defeat against Stowe. With one second left in regulation, Brattleboro’s Liliana Carignan scored the tying goal that sent the game into overtime.
Stowe’s Isabel Donza then scored the game-winner with one minute left in OT. It was her third goal of the game, and gave Stowe its first win of the season. Willow Romo had three goals and an assist to lead the visiting Colonels. Alexandra Gregory also had an assist and goaltender Angela Jobin made 30 saves.
With a 10-1 loss at Hartford on Jan. 14, the Colonels fell to 1-8 on the season.
Senior bowling roundup
• Week 2 of the winter/spring season of the Brattleboro Senior Bowling League at Brattleboro Bowl on Jan. 12 saw Teams 1 and 5 tied for first with 8-2 records, Team 3 is 7-3, Team 4 is 5-5, Teams 6, 7, and 8 are 4-6, and Team 2 is 0-10.
Diane Cooke had the women’s high handicap game (248), while Sally Perry had the high handicap series (660). Chuck Adams had the men’s high handicap game (259) and series (688). Team 8 had the high team handicap game (1,914) and Team 4 had the high handicap series (2,571).
In scratch scoring, Adams led the men with a 688 series with games of 259, 232, and 197. Robert Rigby had a 626 series with games of 219, 217, and 190, while Warren Corriveau Sr. had a 604 series with a 232 game. Jerry Dunham had a 567 series that featured games of 202 and 198. John Walker had a 551 series with a 214 game and Charlie Marchant had had a 516 series with a 190 game.
Carol Gloski had the women’s high scratch series (509) and game (192). Cooke had a 177 game.
Marathon man
• In 1972, Michael Fairchild won the Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks, Alaska in a time of 3 hours, 5 minutes and 15 seconds. Fifty years later, the 71-year-old Brattleboro man was the 213th overall finisher in the Equinox in 5:35:49.
“It was a thrill to be back in Fairbanks,” Fairchild wrote in an email to The Commons. In this year’s race, Fairchild was second in the men’s age 70-74 division and was 139th out of 200 male finishers.
Fairchild wrote that the Equinox is a mountain/trail marathon. “At the time, it was likely the only one of its type in the country,” wrote Fairchild. “The race gains 3,200 feet of elevation. The high point was Ester Dome, where on a clear day one can see over to [Mount] Denali. Trail challenges were part of the race, but the year I was there 6 inches of snow covered the top area of Ester Dome.”
Fairchild said when he first ran the race in the early 1970s, just as the boom in distance running was beginning in the U.S., the Equinox “drew many more participants than the Boston Marathon. When Boston was drawing 200 plus runners, the Equinox was drawing 800 to 1,000.” He added that, unlike the Boston Marathon in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Equinox didn’t have an age limit and allowed women to enter.
Good luck, Shane
• Shane Covey, the sports editor of the Brattleboro Reformer, last week announced he was stepping away from his position after nearly 15 years on the job. I was at the Reformer during my second tour when Shane, a Brattleboro native, joined the staff in 2008 after a decade at the Athol (Mass.) Daily News, and he has done a good job covering the local scene.
I was a sports reporter at the Reformer during my first tour there from 1989 to 1995. I started covering local sports again when I came to The Commons in 2010. It is one of the many hats I wear at this improbable newspaper. That’s when Shane went from being a co-worker to a colleague, and it’s been a pleasure sharing the sideline with him and sharing information and observations over the past decade.
Shane hasn’t said what his next gig will be, but I wish him good luck wherever he lands. He deserves it.