Minutemen roll past Cosmos, 51-31

Girls basketball at Springfield.

www.rutlandherald.com    

Minutemen roll past Cosmos, 51-31 Rutland Herald | February 22, 2017 By POODY WALSH CORRESPONDENT SPRINGFIELD — It’s been kind of a strange season for the Mill River girls. Coming off a season that saw them lose in the finals of the Division II title game, the Minutemen started out the season with five straight victories before somebody put a lid on the basket and they lost four straight. But all that is forgotten now as Tuesday night’s 51-31 win over Springfield was the eighth straight triumph, leaving Mill River at 13-4 and on top of the statewide Division II rankings. However, staying there might be a problem, as Lyndon, 13- 2, and Fair Haven 14-3, are right in the rearview mirror. And that Fair Haven team is on the docket soon. In all, the Minutemen have three games starting with Hartford on Friday then the Slaters and Otter Valley next week. Mill River coach Ken Webb was concerned about the game Tuesday night because his team has not always played well in Springfield even though this version of the Cosmos, 3-13, is going through a growingup stage with a roster that contains four freshmen and three sophomores. “What we wanted was to stay focused and take care of business and I think we did that with a quick start,” said Webb as his team jumped out to lead of 22-10 after one quarter and 39-19 at the half. Both teams pretty much took the second half off as they tallied a combined 24 points, each team getting a dozen. Springfield coach Joe Costello is just trying to keep his team focused and lay some groundwork for the future. “I’m not giving up on this season, but I want this group not to get discouraged,” he explained. “It’s a long season and one like this can be tough on 14-year-olds.” Mill River spread out the scoring as five players tallied between eight and 11 points with Tessa Davenport leading the way with 11, followed by 10 from Melissa Fay, nine from Britney Blanchard and Rylee Nichols and eight off the hands of Hannah Sheehe. Both teams could have improved their foul shooting as Mill River was 4 for 13 and Springfield 5 for 11. The top Springfield scored was sophomore Hannah Crosby with 11. Freshman Hailey Perham had seven. Fair Haven comes to Springfield Thursday night.