Cosmos erupt early to top Bellows Falls

A 14-0 run to open the game sparked Springfield's 56-36 victory over Bellows Falls in the nightcap of a girls basketball double-header here Saturday.

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2016-01-04 / Sports Cosmos erupt early to top Bellows Falls By TIM TAYLOR sports@eagletimes.com Springfield’s Ari Rowe shoots over Bellows Falls’ Murphy Hicks during Saturday’s victory. — TIM TAYLOR Springfield’s Ari Rowe shoots over Bellows Falls’ Murphy Hicks during Saturday’s victory. — TIM TAYLOR SPRINGFIELD — A 14-0 run to open the game sparked Springfield's 56-36 victory over Bellows Falls in the nightcap of a girls basketball double-header here Saturday. An aggressive game plan and a red-hot Lizzie Mackenzie held the Terriers at bay. Meanwhile, BF was plagued by turnovers and poor shooting. “That was a point of emphasis for us coming into tonight's game,” said Springfield coach Joe Costello of his team's aggressive style. “We've been trying to find our identity throughout the course of the season, me being a new coach to these girls, and these girls losing some key elements from previous teams. We've been trying find out where our strengths lie and we're finding that it might be pushing the tempo every day, making this game very frantic, both for us and against us, and we feel like that's where our strengths lie. I thought the girls executed our vision pretty well.” “It was awful,” said BF coach Joe Goodhue. “It's been that way lately. We shoot ourselves in the foot; turnovers, then shots not going in.” Goodhue acknowledged his team tried to battle back, however, it was not to be for the visitors on this night. Mackenzie, who poured in 27 points on the night, including five 3-point field goals, put up six points during the first-quarter burst. Brooke Willey, who finished with 11 points, and Cassidy Otis split the other eight for a 14-1 lead after the first eight minutes. “We told them up front 21 [Mackenzie] and 14 [Willey] were going to kill us and sometimes we just let them go. We haven't been rebounding that well lately and it hurt us again today, not rebounding as well as we should have. [We] gave them too many second and third chances.” The Cosmos would go cold for the final 3:25 of the period, but BF failed to gain ground, finally getting on the scoreboard on a Murphy Hicks free throw with 90 seconds left. Hannah Kelly would give the Terriers their first basket of the night 33 seconds into the second quarter. BF looked like it might rally when it put together a brief 5-0 spurt to narrow the margin to 17-9 with 6:09 left in the half. That's when Mackenzie drained her first trey and her second would push the lead back up, to 25-12 with 3:12 remaining in the half. Hicks, who put together and impressive double-double with 15 points and 21 rebounds, Molly and Hannah Kelly, and Kari Ticino had one field goal apiece in the second period and the Terriers went 8-for-16 at the free throw line. However, Springfield still outscored them by a point to take a 31-17 lead into the break. Three Springfield starters, two forwards and a guard/forward, ran into foul trouble Bellows Falls’ Murphy Hicks (23) gets a hand on the ball while defending against Springfield’s Aunna Parker. — TIM TAYLOR Bellows Falls’ Murphy Hicks (23) gets a hand on the ball while defending against Springfield’s Aunna Parker. — TIM TAYLOR in the first half and the Cosmos also lost reserve forward Madee Stagner to an injury early on. “Obviously, I was concerned,” said Costello. “That's a scrappy bunch of players that Bellows Falls has and I wasn't comfortably as a coach until late into the fourth quarter. All they needed was a few quick steals to turn the whole momentum of that game around.” That momentum swing never occurred. The upside for BF was it had played the Cosmos pretty even for the final 11 1/2 minutes of the first half, but Springfield would take back control of the contest in the third quarter. Mackenzie swished two more shots from downtown and Willey ended the period with a buzzer-beating trey to push the lead to 44-24 and all but seal the deal. “She played the best game that I've seen her play in a Cosmo uniform tonight and we're hoping that can happen more often,” Costello said of Mackenzie. “At least we started to get our shots to fall a little bit later,” said Goodhue. “It was just too much of a hole to try to keep digging ourselves out.” Hicks scored the first two baskets of the final period and added a trey, but Mackenzie nailed her final 3-pointer of the game and added a bucket on a fast-break pass from Willey to maintain the sizable advantage. Otis added seven points to the Cosmos' effort and Ari Rowe contributed six more. “We were 2-for-18 as a team against Windsor the other night and I don't know what we shot tonight, but it was considerably better,” Costello said. Ticino and Hannah Kelly added five points apiece for the Terriers. Bellows Falls (2-4) visits Mt. St. Joseph (6-0) this evening at 6 p.m. and Springfield (2-6) hosts Mt. Anthony (3-4) on Thursday at 7 p.m.