by Ken Brown
WILLIAMSTOWN – The young and up and coming Twinfield-Cabot girls’ basketball team are still learning to close out tight games as they dropped another pair of nail-biters last week to Williamstown and Danville, falling to 1-6 on the season.
Destiny Campbell poured in a game-high 18 points and pulled down 10 rebounds to power Williamstown to a 47-42 home overtime win over the Lady Trojans last Monday. Jorga Washburn led Twinfield-Cabot with 16 as they took a 22-20 advantage into the break. The Lady Blue Devils stormed back behind Natalie Beliveau (11 points) and Courtney Townsend (seven) to take a 32-26 advantage after three quarters. Twinfield-Cabot battled back to tie it at 40-40 at the end of regulation and had it at a one possession game with under 40 seconds left in overtime, but couldn’t convert. Williamstown evened their record at 4-4 on the season with the win.
“As a young team, we continue to struggle with stringing together consistent quality minutes throughout the entire game. We have silly preventable lapses on defense, where we will go three or four possessions in a row not switching on picks or not boxing out,” said head coach David Conover.
Laci Potter and Lauren Joncas scored 14 points apiece to lead Danville to a 39-35 home win over the Lady Trojans on Wednesday. Washburn was strong again for Twinfield-Cabot, scoring a team-high 12 points to give the visitors a 22-14 lead at the break. Danville started the second half on a 17-6 run to regain the lead and escape with the win. Haylee North added nine points for the Lady Trojans in the loss. Sloane Morse chipped in with seven points for Danville as they improved to 3-6.
“It is great that we are aggressive on defense and when we’re focused, we don’t give up a lot of field goals. The downside is that we are fouling way too much. Our last two games are prime examples. We led both teams in field goal makes, but they are beating us at the free throw line. These mental lapses are something we need to focus and improve upon moving forward,” said Conover.
Conover’s young squad has shown promise this season, holding leads in all but two of their contests. They have four losses of five points or less, including two of those coming in overtime. Twinfield-Cabot won two games in their inaugural season in the vaunted Mountain League last winter, with the majority of their losses being lopsided. Victories in bunches could be right around the corner for this green Lady Trojan squad if they can find the right formula at the end of games.
Mid-Vermont Christian was scheduled to come to Marshfield on Tuesday and Twinfield-Cabot will host BFA-Fairfax on Friday in a pivotal league match-up.