Hazen Union assistant coaches Alison Blaney, Sue Rivard, Dorothy Hill and head coach Randy Lumsden get together before the start of the championship game Saturday.
HARDWICK – Head Coach Randy Lumsden is now a state champion at Hazen Union as both a coach and as a player, and when he describes his Lady Cat basketball program as being a family, you don’t have to look any farther than his talented coaching staff on the bench with him this past season to see why.
When Lumsden took over the Hazen Union varsity girls’ basketball program last winter, he said he wanted to build something that created the same type of excitement and expectation within the community that the legendary Aaron Hill has built the past 25 years with his boys’ program. He admitedly has a long way to go to compare to who he calls the best coach in the state of Vermont, but after leading his Lady Cat team to their first state championship in 33 years over the weekend, he’s off to a pretty good start.
The stats in Lumsden’s first two seasons on the sidelines don’t seem real, but here they are: a program record back-to-back 20-win seasons, a program record back-to-back 19-game winning streak, and a program record 40-3 to start his coaching career, culminating in a state title his second season.
Hazen Union head coach Randy Lumsden is presented with the championship ball after the Division III win, March 9. Since Hazen Union opened, this is the school’s fourth girls’ championship win. The other championship years were 1975, 1976 and 1991.
Lumsden championships as both a player and now coach, makes him the first to do so in the basketball program at Hazen. Jack Strong is the other player-coach to accomplish the same feat in baseball as a player at Hardwick Academy and coach at Hazen. Lumsden played for Hill, scoring just under 1,000 points in his career, and winning the 1999-2000 Division III state title. Hill is not surprised by Lumsden’s success as a coach.
“Randy was a great player, who sacrificed a lot playing alongside some of the best players in our program’s history in Tim Shedd and Billy Welcome. He easily could’ve scored 1,000 points in his career, but winning a championship for the team was more important to him. He has a huge heart, a great passion for the game, and empathy for the people around him. I’m not surprised that his program has taken on his identity as a person so quickly and I couldn’t be happier for him,” said Hill.
Head Coach Randy Lumsden walks back to his team after he finished cutting down the net.
Lumsden’s coaching staff is a star-studded cast of women who exemplify the family atmosphere he wants to create for the program. His assistant coaches are Sue Rivard, Dorothy Hill, Alison Blaney who, by the way, could hoop just a little bit back in their day.
Rivard is still tied for the all-time scoring record at North Country and went on to play for the Clarkson University women’s basketball team. Her son Tyler and daughter Kelsie are now both state champions at Hazen and could go down as the greatest multi-sport athletes in school history when it’s all said and done.
Hill graduated from Cabot in ’99 as the program’s all-time leading scorer, a record that stood for almost 20 years before the great Alisha Celley came along. Hill’s son Xavier is also a state champion and will graduate in the spring as one of the best basketball and soccer players in the state.
Blaney was a double-digit scorer for both Craftsbury Academy and Hazen, leading a Cinderella tenth-seeded Lady Cat team to the state title game in 1994. Blaney also coached this same group of dynamic freshmen and sophomores to an undefeated JV season last winter.
The family connections and basketball acumen of Lumsden’s coaching staff is definitely not lost on him.
“It’s been a couple years since I won one as a player, but I remember feeling gratified and although very happy for my team, there was a lot of self satisfaction in it too. Watching these girls win it all the other night was such a feeling of selfless joy for them that it was just surreal. The group of women on this coaching staff is pure class. They were all high-level players and are able to connect with these girls individually and teach them on and off the court. They’ve been crucial to our success and what they represent along with our players, is the type of values that I want this program to be known for. Our group of freshmen have been talked about a lot this season and with their talent they should be. But we have a very solid group of sophomores on this team as well, and the way they’ve developed under this coaching staff made it possible for us to accomplish what we did this season,” said Lumsden.
