BARRE – After steamrolling Long Trail and Richford in the first two rounds of the Division IV state tournament, the Twinfield-Cabot (22-1) boys basketball team kept their foot on the gas Monday night against fifth seeded Twin Valley to advance to their first state title game in nearly a decade.
photo by Vanessa Fournier
Senior Eli Russell (32 points) and sophomore Omar Miksic-Knibb (16) set the tone in the first two quarters for the Trojans as they blew by Twin Valley 77-57 Monday night at the Barre Auditorium. Russell scored the first nine points for Twinfield-Cabot with an array of finishes at the rim. He finished with 11 in the quarter and Zepherin Hebert’s (12 points) corner three and two straight finishes by Sam McLane (five points) gave the top seeded Trojans a 20-14 edge after eight minutes of play.
“After reaching 1,000 career points a couple weeks ago, Eli has been a little quiet offensively in our last four games, including the playoffs. He’s still been doing all the things that help our offense go, but I could tell it was bothering him. You could see a night like this coming soon,” said head coach Kris Bador.
photo by Vanessa Fournier
Miksic-Knibb opened the second quarter with two straight finishes at the rim to make it 26-17, missed an and one opportunity moments later to push the lead to 31-20 and scored his tenth point of the quarter with less than two minutes in the half to balloon the lead to 35-20. Brayden Brown (22 points) ended a 12-0 run for the Trojans at the end of the half to make it 38-22 at the break. The Wildcats looked to mount a comeback at the start of the second half with back-to-back steals and finishes from Brown and Brian Sullivan (eight points) but consecutive finishes by senior Thomas Gouge in the paint quieted a hopeful Twin Valley fan section. Russell continued to pour it on with eight consecutive points in the paint, Hebert added another before Russell provided the knockout punch with a long distance three at the end of the third quarter to make it 60-40. After a Tej Stewart (eight points) three at the top of key made it 70-49 with five minutes to go in the game, Niko Gerding (10 points) and Landon Brown (15) gave the Wildcats one last hope with back-to-back field goals, cutting the lead to 70-53 midway through the fourth. Miksic-Knibb found Russell on a beautiful back door cut for his 30th point of the night, Hebert converted an and one opportunity with just over three minutes left and Miksic-Knibb finished a layup in transition to extinguish any hope.
photo by Vanessa Fournier
Twinfield-Cabot advances to their first state title game since consecutive appearances under Chris Hudson in 2016-17. Connor Spencer, Jordan Moore and Anthony Golden were part of those teams and now serve as assistant coaches on Bador’s staff. This will go down as a historic senior class at Twinfield-Cabot, but this game meant a little extra something to Russell, McLane and Ben Monaco. The senior trios’ only loss of the soccer season came to Twin Valley in the Division IV state title match five months ago in Rutland. They were forced to watch the Wildcats (17-0) complete a perfect season, while ending theirs at the same time.
Earlier in the week, Hebert poured in 19 points, Stewart added 15 and Sam Churchill (14) did the dirty work inside in a 90-22 first round win over Long Trail. They went on to blitz Richford 73-39 on Friday night behind Miksic-Knibb’s 18, punching their ticket back to the Aud for a second straight season. Under Bador, the Trojan program has won 41 games the past two seasons against just five losses. They roll into the state title game this weekend against Williamstown having won 19 consecutive games, including a regular season sweep of the Blue Devils. The two rivals went toe to toe in the Winter Solstice at the Barre Auditorium over the Christmas Holiday before the Trojans pulled away late for a 76-63 win. It was a different story three weeks ago as Twinfield-Cabot protected its home court with a dominant 82-61 victory. Williamstown brings a newly minted 1,000-point scorer of their own into this matchup in Nick Mascitti and Bador knows his team will have to execute the game plan a third time in a row to complete the mission they’ve been on all season.
“Contain their Bigs, limit their three-point opportunities and continue to play good team defense. Take care of the basketball and we need to put 32 minutes together one more time as a team and as a family,” said Bador.
The Trojans will square off against Williamstown in the Division IV state championship on Saturday afternoon at the Barre Auditorium.
