Sideline Chatter:

That’s a Wrap!

The curtain has finally dropped upon the high school basketball season. As always, interesting results came to pass throughout the playoffs and most particularly at the Barre Auditorium, the setting for the "Final Four" in Divisions 2, 3, and 4.

It certainly was not a good year to be seeded number one. Only one boys’ top ranked team even reached the finals, that being the D-4 Cabot Huskies, presumably driven by last year’s disappointing one-point loss in the finals. For the Cheese-town school, the 2003 hoop title was its first-ever state championship, boys or girls, in any sport. Good for them.

Sadly, Cabot’s success came at the expense of a plucky, if maybe a bit outmatched, Chelsea squad. Even so, Mark Vermette’s charges surpassed last year’s result by reaching the finals. Along the way they knocked off perhaps their most significant nemesis, the Wilmington’s boys, the very same crew that broke the Red Devils hearts in the 2002 soccer finals. Then the Chelsea crew dusted off a very good West Rutland team, a game in which there weren’t enough game balls to pass out to all the Red Devils who authored heroic deeds down the stretch.

Division 3 was won by sixth-seeded Arlington, who had to beat three higher ranked teams in succession, including defending champion Thetford, to claim the crown. For the Panthers it was their second semi-final disappointment in three years. That talented group of boys could just as easily have won three consecutive state titles.

In D-2, heavily favored top seed Woodstock got drubbed by twenty-some points at the hands of #4 U-32, a team that entered the postseason with six losses. One of those losses came courtesy of our own Randolph Ghosts, a result that bears witness to the overall balance in the division this season.

It was a similar scenario in the girls tournament where two highly regarded number ones, D-4 Wilmington and D-2 Oxbow each met their demise in the finals. Only D-3 Arlington became state champ as the top seed.

It is interesting to look ahead to next season. U-32’s boys will graduate only two players from their roster so you know they’re again going to be very tough. On the other hand, Woodstock loses its entire starting lineup, and Vergennes, #2 entering the post-season, also graduates its best players. For their part, Randolph’s boys lose four seniors but will return next November with many key ingredients still available.

Boys D-3 champion Arlington graduates its two most prolific point producers, but their female counterparts lose just one senior. Thetford’s boys graduate the five-man nucleus of their four year run at the D-3 title, and the Lady Panthers suffer a similar, albeit not as extreme, fate. SoRo’s boys lose only three players so they may move up a bit in the pecking order.

Cabot’s boys graduate four players from this year’s starting lineup. With West Rutland losing six seniors, and Chelsea parting with five, it looks like boys D-4 next season will be very much up for grabs. Locally, Whitcomb loses most of its varsity roster, but Rochester gets everyone back.

On the girls’ side of things, Oxbow’s basketball factory graduates eight seniors, but you just know they’ll be back in contention. State champ Montpelier, though graduating four seniors, figures to be a factor again. The Gal Ghosts saw the end of the Hannah-Dempsey era, leaving question marks about where the points and the ball handling will come from next year.

In girls D-3, Arlington loses virtually nothing, leaving the rest of the division to play catch up. Runner-up Rivendell, which had no seniors on its roster and depth at almost every position might do just that. In our own backyard, South Royalton’s girls graduate only two seniors, but with them goes most of the team’s rebounding.

Finally, in girls’ D-4, our local entries from Chelsea and Whitcomb each will graduate girls whose names have been fixtures on the sports pages for years. You just don’t replace four-year starters without a bit of a drop off.