Mount Abraham outlasts Spaulding in Division II girls basketball championship
BARRE - Sixth seeded Mount Abraham wasn’t favored past the opening round.
That didn’t matter to the resilient Eagles.
Mount Abraham saw its lead erased in the closing minutes of the first half.
That didn’t shake the tough Eagles and nothing would.
Mount Abraham (16-8) prevailed 36-33 over No. 4 Spaulding on Saturday afternoon in the Division II high school girls basketball championship.
“They've gotten better every day of the season,” longtime Eagles coach Connie LaRose said. “They've learned and they've been receptive to what we're teaching and done their darnedest to do it.”
Without their starting center, Laura Bonar — who was instrumental locking down the paint in the first half — and trailing by four entering the final frame of a back-and-forth affair, the Eagles multi-sport star Madison Gile (game-high 16 points) tied the contest at 25 with 6:36 left.
Enter Lucy Parker and Payton Vincent.
Parker, driving right, hung above the crowd for a flawless one-handed finish pushing the Eagles’ lead to four with 4:06 left. Then off a pick and roll, Parker (seven points) dropped a delivery to a streaking Vincent, who was fouled and made one at the line.
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After the Eagles held the Crimson Tide scoreless for nearly five minutes in the deciding stanza, Gile corralled an inbounds pass on the baseline for a strong finish and snared a seven-point lead, their largest of the game.
“I think that we played with a lot of grit today,” Gile said. “We played with our saying — ‘Play hard, play smart and play together’ and that's been going on throughout this year.”
Spaulding cut the deficit to three with 3:15 left in regulation on Autumn Lewis’ free throw line jumper, but that was as close as the Tide could manage as the senior-led squad from Barre was held to eight points in the fourth.
“We just missed some key baskets and I was just trying to keep their heads up,” Spaulding coach Tanya MacAuley said. “And their energy was just higher than ours at that point.”
Parker’s quick hands, a staple of the Eagles’ swarming defense, snagged a Spaulding inbounds pass with 2:04 left and her subsequent free throws kept Crimson Tide seniors, Emily Poulin (nine points) and Samantha Donahue (eight) at bay in the final minutes.
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Mount Abraham led by as many as five in the first half, but Spaulding went on an 11-0 run, paced by Poulin’s six points, to seize a five-point advantage at the close of the second quarter. Gile halted the run with 17 seconds remaining on a smooth turnaround move in the post.
“We were still composed,” Gile said of Spaulding’s run. “Sometimes that doesn't happen in our games, but today, we stay composed and we communicated together on defense and that really helped us pull it out.”
The Eagles, who claimed their first championship since 2018, were tromped by the Tide by 26 points a month ago.
“We battled injuries, COVID — we practiced for almost five weeks with just either seven, eight or nine girls,” LaRose said. “They're resilient and I praise them for it.
“I said we can use those things for excuses, or we can get through it.”
Contact Jacob Rousseau at JRousseau@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter: @ByJacobRousseau
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: VT HS girls basketball: Mount Abraham outlasts Spaulding in D-II final
