Cosmos gut one out over BF

Playing tough when it counted, Springfield held on for a 34-32 win over Bellows Falls Tuesday night at Dressell Gym in a Division II boys basketball contest.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20141217/SPORTS02/712179905

Published December 17, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Cosmos gut one out over BF By POODY WALSH Correspondent SPRINGFIELD — Playing tough when it counted, Springfield held on for a 34-32 win over Bellows Falls Tuesday night at Dressell Gym in a Division II boys basketball contest. Trailing 32-30 with two minutes to go senior guard Ed Shambo made two big plays to give the Cosmos the lead which was capped off by a Josh Rivers feed to Justin Gomez to put the game away. Shambo tied the game when he tricky dribbled his way through the BF defense for a lay-up and seconds later stole the ball and fed Mike Messer to put the Cosmos up 34-32. Bellows Falls tied the game when Jake Mead found an open slot down the lane with 43 seconds left, but Springfield regained the lead with 28 seconds to play when Josh Rivers fed Justin Gomez on the fast break. Bellows Falls missed a chance to get back into a tie again when Shane Clark went to the line for two shots with 9.3 seconds to play. However, Clark missed both. Both teams at times struggled, but Bellows Falls paid a price for missing a ton of under-the-basket hoops. “We’ve been practicing a lot on defense, maybe we should work some more on offense,” said BF coach Ryan Stoodley. Stoodley and Springfield’s Tom MacDonnell are both first year coaches and both know that the game had a lot of early season tendencies. “We’ll take it,” said MacDonnell who acknowledged that it was a game his team could have lost had it not held its composure down the stretch. “It’s still early in the season and we’re still learning on the fly.” A lot of the Bellows Falls offense was on vacation in Florida as last year’s leading scorer Brian McAnuff was not available. However, Stoodley knew that the players he had on hand could have perhaps chipped in with a few more baskets. ‘It’s frustrating,” said Stoodley, a BF grad who played basketball for Bill Murphy. “You know we played pretty good defense and put ourselves in position to score, but couldn’t make the basket. We just kept missing the layups.” The jitters that come with early season basketball was evident early as Bellows Falls had just one hoop in the first period and the score at the half was 16-16. While the game may have not been an artistic success it had its better moments down the stretch. “We gutted it out,” said MacDonnell. Cameron Joy topped the BF scorers with 14 while Rivers had 13 for Springfield. The 1-1 Cosmos will head to the Green Mountain tourney on Friday where they will have a 4:30 game with Twinfield. Bellows Falls, 0-2, is at Windsor on Friday.