PROCTOR – The Twinfield-Cabot boys basketball team made an early statement to the contenders in Division IV over the weekend, emphatically winning the Bob Abrahamson Tip-off Classic for the second time in three seasons.
In the opening round on Friday night, Tej Stewart and Zepherin Hebert scored 17 points apiece to lead the Trojans to a hard-fought win over high powered Twin Valley 53-46. Eli Russell added eight from the point guard position and Stewart salted the game away late, converting five of six free throws to secure the win. Brayden Brown led all scorers with 31 for the Wildcats, who went on to defeat Poultney 63-39 in the consolation game.
“Brown is a top-five player in our division and credit to our coaches Jordan Moore and Connor Spencer for putting a great game plan together. We put our talented freshman Omar Miksic-Knibb on him all night from baseline to baseline. A player like that is going get his, but Omar made him work for everything, and the rest of the guys did a great job of shutting everyone else down,” said head coach Kris Bador.
Stewart and Hebert scored 19 apiece on Saturday, combining to torch the Phantoms for eight three-pointers as the Trojans cruised to the title 61-39. Russell ran the offense like a well-oiled machine, scoring 13 points and dishing out a game-high 11 assists as Twinfield-Cabot started the game on a 17-1 run and never looked back. Chase Razanouski led Proctor with 14 in the loss.
“Eli and Tej were instrumental in identifying a weakness in their 1-2-2 zone press and implementing it into our game plan to get some easy back door layups. Zepherin’s defense has been the catalyst for our two wins to start the season and I’m proud of the guys for how locked in they were for this tournament. Razanouski is good player, but we stayed composed defensively and forced him into 12-foot jumpers all night. Thomas Gouge and Sam Churchill brought just unreal energy for us on the boards, and we cross our fingers that we get the best possible news on Sam’s late game injury,” said Bador.
Churchill left in the fourth quarter with an apparent knee injury and will be reevaluated later in the week. Sam McLane should be back from a soccer injury sometime after the holidays, but that leaves Bador’s squad shorthanded going into a highly anticipated match-up against perennial title contender Danville.
“We really hope Churchill’s injury is just a sprain, but we won’t know until the swelling goes down later in the week. Sam was a big part of this team last year and we look forward to getting him back after Christmas. Danville has the best player in the division in Andrew Joncas. He’s an unreal 1,000-point scorer and they were the top seed last season under a very good coach in Jason Brigham. We have a great group of kids who play for each other here at Twinfield-Cabot and they are looking forward to the challenge. This will be a good test for us to see where we stack up,” said Bador.
Danville lost to Grace Christian last season in the Division IV championship game and will make the short trip to Marshfield on Thursday night to take on the Trojans. The Bears were 3-0 against the Trojans last season, including a 61-40 quarterfinal win.
