GIRLS BASKETBALL PLAYOFF PREVIEW
By Ben Kaufmann
County Courier
Division I
(No. 6) BFA-St. Albans (11-9) vs. (No. 11) South Burlington (4-16) –
Wednesday 3/4 5:30 PM
What. A. Draw.
The Comet team which limped to five straight losses to close the season gained new life on Monday morning with the reveal of the best possible bracket. New divisional alignments this year left fewer teams in Divsion I, and the Comets have the best path to Patrick gym of anyone without a first-round bye (and even with the top five teams receiving byes, I don’t think BFA would trade places with No. 4 or No. 5 if offered the chance). BFA hosts a South Burlington team it crushed, 51-25, in January. The Wolves, like BFA, lost five straight to end the season and will arrive in St. Albans on Wednesday as heavy underdogs. SBHS underwent a midseason coaching change, finished at the bottom of Division I, and if BFA has to play a first-round game to avoid the CVU half of the bracket, the Wolves are the best possible draw.
If BFA gets through the first round, a Saturday trip to (No. 3) Mt. Mansfield awaits with a semifinal berth at Patrick Gym on the line. MMU plays a lighter schedule than most of Division I and is, by far, the best possible matchup of the top-four teams for St. Albans. Be warned, BFA knows how intense the student fans can be at a Marlow school, and the culture Dave Marlow has built in Jericho rivals his father’s in St. Albans. Saturday will not offer a player-friendly atmosphere for the Comets if they advance beyond Wednesday.
Tough finish to the season aside, BFA is still one of the state’s elite programs. The Comets go deep, they have shooters, they have size and they have heart. Maren McGinn and her Kareem-style hook-shot can provide a lot of points in a hurry. Caitlyn Dasaro wears the same number as her Bobwhite counterpart, Kam Dunsmore, and both suffer have the same well-intentioned but somewhat unfair reputation: athlete first, then basketball player. Like Dunsmore, Dasaro shouldn’t be knocked because she excels at other sports and will always win any hustle award, she is a genuine basketball player. Any team who takes the Comets lightly will be punished.
A win over MMU likely means a semifinal matchup with (No. 2) Essex, a team BFA hung with for three quarters in Essex and was one or two plays away from beating in the penultimate game of the regular season in St. Albans. Give me BFA over the Hornets on the neutral court at UVM, and assuming (No. 1) CVU is the championship opponent, BFA has played David against the Redhawk’s Goliath before…
Division II
(No. 4) Enosburg (17-3) vs. (No. 13) Middlebury (5-15) –
Wednesday 3/4 7:00 PM
The fourth-seeded Hornet boys are slated for a Thursday tipoff against a top-seed juggernaut on Thursday and the Enosburg girls will end up in the same spot if they can get past a brutal second-round matchup. Victims of a less challenging schedule than they’d prefer, Enosburg got some tests late in the season and dropped two of its last three after winning 11 games in a row. I’m more than a little sure if you asked Hornet coach Gary Geddes if he’d rather have finished 19-1 in the No. 2 spot or have faced that late-season adversity and ended up fourth, he’d choose the latter every time. Enosburg was reminded of the challenges that await, got a chance to play from behind and play in some close games, and got a chance to improve greatly in a second loss to North Country. The second-seeded Falcons are, for all intents and purposes, a co-number one, having only lost to Division I opposition and falling to No. 2 because of a challenging schedule. Geddes will be happy to avoid them until a potential championship.
Enosburg has an array of weapons – at least five different players took turns as the top scorer in a game this season. Sophie Burns tends to be the match that lights the Hornet fire, but if an opponent can shut her down, she has no problem turning into a playmaker for Hannah Burns, Lydia Bowen, Emily Adams, Megan Severance, Megan Gervais, or any number of other Hornets capable of going off for 15-20 points.
Middlebury is no pushover, so Enosburg will need to be ready to work right from the first-round on. The Hornets topped the Tigers by just 13 in their lone meeting this season, though Enosburg did have a 22-8 halftime lead. A win Wednesday likely means a visit from (No. 5) Burr & Burton in an extremely challenging game. Like North Country, the Bulldogs test themselves against the state’s very best – six of their seven losses came against Division I opposition, and Burr & Burton notched impressive wins over Rice, Mt. Anthony and St. Johnsbury. Enosburg will be happy to be home for that quarterfinal matchup, and a win in that one will affirm that (No. 1) Fair Haven and/or (No. 2) North Country in Barre are beatable.
(No. 14) Missisquoi (4-16) at (No. 3) Harwood (17-3) –
Wednesday 3/4 7:00 PM
MVU is undoubtedly on the upswing after years of intense struggle. The program began to bounce back under the leadership of Taylor Coppenrath and only got better this season as coach Moses Power continues the upward trend. Rebuilding takes time, and while playoff wins are in the forecast for the Thunderbirds, getting one on Wednesday is a big ask. The saving grace against a Harwood team that took down MVU by 13 points in the season opener? Harwood’s losses came to two teams in the bottom half of the final Division II rankings in U-32 (x2) and Lyndon – they’re not immune to a trap-game.
It will have been a month since Missisquoi last won when Wednesday rolls around (0-7 since 2/4/20) and two of MVU’s victories came against winless Milton, but I love Power’s style with this team and fully expect his girls to give the Highlanders a scare (and maybe even a loss) on Wednesday. If the breaks don’t go Missisquoi’s way this time, next year should be a different story. Alexandra Brouillette and Abigail Paquette, two of MVU’s top players, are sophomores. That, combined with some genuine success at the lower levels this year, should mean great things down the road for these Thunderbirds.
Milton (0-20) – Did not qualify for the tournament
It wasn’t always pretty for Milton this year, but it wasn’t as bad as 0-20 looks. Alissa Giroux’s girls had their moments and found ways to make a winless season a success by setting goals they could measure outside of a final score. Positivity without wins is no easy task and this season speaks volumes for Giroux as a coach and the Milton culture in general. Milton’s top contributors were all underclassmen, most notably leading scorer, (So.) Mallorie Chalmers. The Yellowjackets will qualify for next year’s tournament, and they’ll do so as better than a No. 16.
Division III
(No. 10) BFA-Fairfax (12-8) at (No. 7) Vergennes (12-8) –
Tuesday 3/3 7:00 PM
We’ve reached the local team with the best finish to the regular season in BFA-Fairfax. Playoffs are largely about getting hot at the right time and the Bullets, winners of four of its last five, fit that bill. Fairfax drew a very winnable road game at Vergennes, a team with an identical record. Both teams fell to Enosburg and took care of business against the likes of Richford, Winooski and Milton. Both have ended the season well. Fairfax would love to be home, but Vergennes shouldn’t frighten BFA and I’m confident that Lee Tourville’s team has every belief that it can earn a Friday trip to (No. 2) Windsor.
Fairfax leans on a big-three for the most part, but the supporting cast behind Paige Superneau, Jaycee Douglas and Hazel Albee is deep and talented. Faith Benjamin, Madison Murphy and Bridgett Dunn are also capable of leading the Bullets in scoring on any given night. And Courtney Burnor and Britney Hamel lead a potent Bullet bench with the potential to take over when needed. If there’s going to be an upset in the first round of the Division III tournament, it’s going to come from the Bullets. I’m going to go ahead and start making tentative plans for Windsor on Friday night. There are no common opponents to analyze between the Wasps and Bullets if we get there, but I’m not betting against Fairfax. If these Bullets don’t make it to Barre, pencil them in for next year – the entire Fairfax roster will be back next season.
Division IV
(No. 7) Richford (9-10) vs. (No. 10) Twin Valley (7-13) –
Tuesday 3/3 6:00 PM
Your guess is as good as mine for this first-round matchup (or Richford’s potential quarterfinal). Richford hasn’t seen first-round opponent, Twin Valley, and has no common opponents to compare. The Rockets also haven’t seen (No. 2) Proctor, which has a first-round bye and awaits the winner of this first-round contest. All we’ll know if Richford wins Tuesday is that Proctor absolutely crushed Twin Valley in a pair of meetings this year, so the final scoreline Tuesday might offer some insight into the quarterfinal.
Richford rides the waves of a talented senior quartet of Kamryn Boyce, Jordin Jacobs, Austin Archambault and Liz Snider. The backcourt of Jacobs and Snider is as formidable as any in Division IV, Boyce has the kind of inside-out game any coach would love to have, and Archambault does a little of everything and does it well. At least one is always on, but if all four are clicking there isn’t much anyone can do to stop the Rockets. If coach Tim Lagasse has his big four in sync, Twin Valley will have a long bus ride home and Proctor should pencil in some extra practice time this week. Richford doesn’t stop at four players; they’ve got a handful of extremely capable sophomores (and lone junior Samantha Ryea) who could all be the x-factor for Richford this week and well beyond.
