by Ken Brown
DANVILLE – The Twinfield-Cabot girls’ soccer team is merging with Danville this fall to officially begin the cooperative membership agreed upon between the three schools.
Seth Wilmott steps aside as the Lady Trojan head coach after six seasons that included hosting back-to-back playoff matches in 2020-21 and the program’s first winning season in over a decade two years ago. Spencer Morse has coached the Danville girls’ varsity team for eight seasons and will shoulder the task of blending the players from all three schools together, as well as making the jump up to a highly competitive division III schedule. Cabot’s Cameron North helped Wilmott resurrect the Twinfield-Cabot program the past few years and will assist Morse this fall.
“This will be the first season that Twinfield, Cabot, and Danville will play as a merged squad. This will have the effect of bumping us up a division. Our biggest challenge will be to make two different teams into one team in every sense of the word. The girls and I are very excited about the opportunity and challenges that are in front of us,” said Morse.
The cooperative got a trial run this past spring, when Danville was unable to field a softball team for the first time and merged their players with Twinfield-Cabot. Successful results, along with historic flooding destroying all the competition fields in both Cabot and Marshfield, led to Caledonia Central Supervisory Union (CCSU) Superintendent Mark Tucker making the CCSU Athletics Cooperative official over the summer. Danville and Twinfield-Cabot will field their own boys’ varsity teams this fall, but going forward the three schools will merge under CCSU Athletics for the spring and fall sports seasons at both the varsity and middle school levels. Basketball will remain separate from the cooperative for the time being, unless participation numbers fall off for either program.
The Lady Bears finished 7-8-1 last season, falling to top seeded Leland & Gray in the second round of the Division IV playoffs. Morse led Danville to its last division IV Final Four appearance in 2020. He lost eight seniors to graduation, including All-Mountain League First Team selection Lilah Hall, but returns a plethora of talent starting with Sloan Morse, who also earned First Team honors. The dynamic center midfielder will welcome fellow First Team selections Alice McLane, Ida Astick, and Camryn Hoffman from Twinfield-Cabot. Jasmine Reason and Hazel Albetti earned Second Team selections for the Lady Bears last fall and also return to the team.
“Sloane settles the ball as good as anyone. She sees the field incredibly well and passes to a dime. She really controls our flow and is also very tough defensively. Alice is a great addition to our midfield, she’s great positionally, and has an incredible shot. Ida played mostly goal for Twinfield-Cabot last season, but she is an extremely versatile player and she’ll be able to contribute anywhere we put her. She’s a natural vocal leader and an extremely hard worker. Camryn is a workhorse who is aggressive on defense and will give our opponents fits with her quickness. Hazel was our sweeper last season and was great at backing up our fullbacks and clearing loose balls. She is tough as nails and I’m hoping to see her get a chance to move forward this year to bring us some much-needed offense. Jasmine is super strong and poised at the fullback position. She always draws opponents toughest forward mark and is great at shutting them down. Leah Klark was our keeper last year and is another tough as nails player. She’s done a good job of developing her aggressiveness and activity in net,” said Morse.
Danville-Twinfield-Cabot is scheduled for a final tune up scrimmage against Lyndon Institute on Thursday and will open their season on the road against BFA-Fairfax next Tuesday.
