Bratt misses bus but beats Cosmos

Brattleboro and Springfield, two teams trying to make something out of what has been a less-than-satisfying season, went at it Saturday with the Colonels getting their transition game going in the second half and coming away with a 46-33 win at Dressel Gym.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110213/SPORTS/702139981

Published February 13, 2011 in the Rutland Herald
Bratt misses bus but beats Cosmos

By POODY WALSH
Herald Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD - Brattleboro and Springfield, two teams trying to make something out of what has been a less-than-satisfying season, went at it Saturday with the Colonels getting their transition game going in the second half and coming away with a 46-33 win at Dressel Gym.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Colonels took a little while to get going was they didn’t arrive at the gym until there were just 14 minutes before game time.

Brattleboro coach Paul Freed said that the team bus left Brattleboro without his team.

“We were supposed to ride with the freshmen (who were playing Springfield in Saturday’s preliminary game), but the bus left without us,” Freed said. “The bus had to drop off the freshmen then turn around and come back and get us. When we walked into the gym there was just 14 minutes left on the pre-game clock.”

Both teams are winding down the season and both are certainly going to hit the road in the playoffs. Brattleboro came into the game 3-12 and losers of nine of its previous 10 games. The Colonels were in 16th place in the 16-team, state-wide Division I standings.

“We played pretty well today and this is the time of the year that you want to be playing well,” Freed said.

Springfield had won two of its last three games, but is now 5-11 on the year and in ninth spot in Division II, which has 14 teams.

“We should have controlled the tempo, but we didn’t,” Springfield coach Brodie Ladue said. “We let them play their game.”

Their game. Once the Colonels got rid of the bus lag, they were up the court with some haste, finding a crease in the defense and getting the easy shot.

“We really started to move the ball well,” Freed said. “We have some very good athletes and once we got in a groove we looked pretty good. We had some early turnovers, but I keep telling the girls to shoot. It’s no good to pass the ball around until you turn it over. I want the girls to shoot the ball.”

The pace of the game was agonizingly slow at the outset as Springfield led 4-3 with two minutes to go in the first period. However, the Colonels put a mini-run together and led 9-4 after one. The flow of the game continued to drag through the second quarter as only a total of 13 points were scored with Brattleboro on top, 15-11, after the first 16 minutes.

Apparently rejuvenated by the rest at halftime, the Colonels began finishing off the their drives and aided by an eight-point quarter from senior Mariah Lesure took control of the game at 30-20 after three.

When Springfield got the first point of the final period to get the spread back to single digits there was some clamoring of the Springfield bench. But that excitement lasted just a few seconds as Brattleboro’s Kelsey Paterson stuck a final dagger into the Cosmos heart with a long 3. That put the lead back in double figures and the game was pretty much over.

“We needed this,” Freed said.

“They wanted and we didn’t,” is the way Ladue looked at it.

Lesure ended up with 11 points and was the game’s only double figure scorer. Erin LeBlanc added eight. Jill Rushton had nine for Springfield while Jenna Paul came off the bench to hit two threes and had eight points.

Springfield goes to Hartford Monday and Brattleboro will go to Burr and Burton on Tuesday.