Cosmos pull away from Terriers

Springfield surged in the second half for a 52-35 win in Marble Valley League girls basketball game Tuesday night at Westminster.
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http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121213/SPORTS02/712139857

Published December 13, 2012 in the Rutland Herald Cosmos pull away from Terriers By POODY WALSH Correspondent WESTMINSTER — Bellows Falls would have been the underdog with a full complement of players, but the chances for upsetting Springfield lessened when point guard Kya Coursen was unable to play. Still the Terriers stayed with the Cosmos for awhile before Springfield surged in the second half for a 52-35 win in Marble Valley League girls basketball game Tuesday night at Holland Gym. It was the season opener for both teams. While Springfield has a veteran squad coming back, there’s no doubt that sophomore Chelsea McAllister is the showcase piece. Emily Dufault had the tough duty of covering McAllister and did a creditable job even though McAllister had a 22-point night. McAllister was 4-for-8 from the 3-point range and was perfect from the foul line in four tries. She also had two left-handed runners in the second half that were shots that only she could make. “Emily (Dufault) is one of our best offensive players and she probably would have scored more if she didn’t have to play so much defense,” Bellows Falls coach Justin Aube said. There certainly were some early-eason jitters as the ball was bouncing all over Holland Gym, especially in the first half, a half that saw Springfield have a hard time getting away from the Terriers as the lead was just 20-19 with 3:12 to go and 26-19 at the break. “When we come to practice tomorrow the first thing we’re going to work on is our defense,” Springfield coach Joe Brown said. “We had a lot of injuries in the preseason and we’re probably a week away from where we want to be, but we have to get better on defense.” The third quarter was the breakaway period for the Cosmos as a 15-8 run that broke the game open at 41-27 with eight minutes to play. “We just didn’t box out,” Aube said. Still it wasn’t a game that discouraged Aube ,who was also missing guard Darion James. “We had some runs. There were times we looked pretty good.” McAllister hit a 3 to jump-start the Cosmos in the third period and move the advantage to 29-19. Chelsea Wilder hit on a drive for the Terriers to get it back to single digit game at 29-21, but the Cosmos went on an eight-point run to open it up to 37-21 and put a lock on the game. To Bellows Falls’ credit, after falling behind 13-5 in the first period, the Terriers closed to within one in the second and did it without starting center Enny Mustapha, who picked up her third foul at the 6:51 mark of the period. Bellows Falls made its best run after trailing 18-11, going on an 8-2 run to make it 20-19. Wilder provided the spark in that rally as she hit back-to-back one-handers to give the Terriers temporary hope for an upset. However, it wasn’t to be as the Cosmos used the halftime to get things in order and took over in the third period. Sara Locke with nine and Abby Cox with eight followed McAllister in the scoring column for Springfield. Wilder had 10 to paced BF, which got seven-point games from Dufault and Corina Stack. Springfield goes to Proctor on Saturday while Bellows Falls hosts Leland and Gray next Monday.