The Leland & Gray Rebels girls' basketball team got a chance for a little payback last Wednesday in the championship game of the Bellows Falls Holiday Tournament.
On Dec. 19, Enny Mustapha's lay-up with 10 seconds left in the game was the difference as Bellows Falls spoiled Leland & Gray's home opener with a 37-35 victory.
Nine days later, the Rebels got their revenge in Holland Gymnasium with a 40-25 win.
In their first meeting in Townshend, BF controlled the flow of the game with a disruptive defense that forced 26 turnovers by the Rebels, who did not help their cause with a 7-for-18 night at the free throw line.
In the Holiday Tournament, the Rebels got better free throw shooting (13-for-20) and played more aggressively in beating the Terriers.
Callie Ginter led the Rebels with 14 points. Ashley Goddard, who was the top scorer for the Rebels in the Dec. 19 game with 16 points and 13 rebounds, added 10 points, and Chelby Nystrom chipped in 9.
It was the second straight BF holiday tournament title for the Rebels.
Girls' basketball
• On Dec. 21, the Terriers were beaten by Sharon Academy 44-38. Kya Coursen led the Terriers with 13 points, while Corina Stack added 8.
BF avenged that loss at its Holiday Tournament on Dec. 27 with a 37-21 victory over Sharon. The Terriers' defense held Sharon to just six points in the first half, and set the tone for the rest of the game. Emily Dufault was high scorer with 11 points, while Coursen, Stack, and Mustapha all scored 6 points each.
• Sophomore forward Arianna Harrison scored 17 points to lead the Brattleboro Colonels to a 46-38 win over the Burlington Seahorses on Dec. 19 at the BUHS gym. Mary Richardson added 10 points as the Colonels held off a third-quarter Seahorse rally and put the game away with a 7-0 run to start the final quarter.
The Colonels traveled to Essex on Dec. 22 and got handed their first loss of the season, 58-33. Harrison was Brattleboro's top scorer with 8 points. Nine of her teammates also scored in the game as the lopsided result gave coach Paul Freed a chance to give his reserves plenty of playing time.
• Twin Valley shocked the defending Division IV champions, the Poultney Blue Devils, in a 57-49 victory on Dec. 21 in Wilmington.
Sammy Cunningham and Jordan Niles took turns defending Poultney's 1,000-point scorer Ali Jones, and held her to just 9 points. Abbi Molner and Lexi Reinertson teamed up for 18 rebounds. On offense, Niles and Bit Aekus each hit four three-pointers for the Wildcats. Niles had a game-high 22 points, while Aekus added 12.
In the opening game of the Green Mountain Holiday Tournament in Chester on Dec. 27, Molner had a career-high 15 points to go along with 5 rebounds and 3 steals to lead the Wildcats to a 44-32 win over the Chieftains.
Trailing 29-16 at the half, Green Mountain inched closer in the third quarter, but Cunningham stopped the comeback bid with a clutch three-pointer in the third quarter. TV also went 10-for-13 from the free throw line as Shannon Lozito finished with 9 points and Niles added 6. Point guard Savannah Nesbitt racked up 6 assists, 5 boards and 5 steals.
In the championship game of the GM Tourney last Thursday, the Wildcats fell to Springfield, 43-33. Nesbitt led Twin Valley with 13 points and 9 steals. Cunningham followed with 8 points, while Molner had 6 points and 9 rebounds.
• The Windsor Yellowjackets, beat up on Leland & Gray, 50-26, on Dec. 22. The defending Division III Vermont champions led 16-3 after the first quarter, 26-12 at the half, and were ahead 41-19 going into the final quarter. Haley Buffum led Leland & Gray with 9 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Goddard had 10 rebounds and Alex Morrow had 6 rebounds and 2 blocks.
The Rebels got their first win of the season at the BF Holiday Tournament, when they beat Stevens, 44-35, on Dec. 27. Buffum scored 12 points and Ginter added 11 to lead the Rebels. Goddard pulled down 15 rebounds and Morrow had 5 assists.
Boys' basketball
• Brattleboro enters the new year with a 5-1 record.
The Colonels took care of the Stevens Cardinals, 72-60, on Dec. 21 at the BUHS gym. A 21-for-30 night at the free throw line was the key to victory for the Colonels, as Ethan Mitnik (16 points), Soren Pelz-Walsh (14), Jay Vinci (13), and Travis Beeman-Nesbitt (12) were all in double figures in an aggressively-played game.
The elements that gave the Colonels the win at home also worked on the road, as Brattleboro journeyed to St. Johnsbury on Dec. 23 and came away with a 57-45 win.
Heydinger was high scorer with 17 points, and Pelz-Walsh (12) Beeman-Nesbitt (9), Vinci (8) and Mitnik (7) rounded out the scoring. The Colonels went 9-for-10 from the free throw line in the final quarter, out-rebounded the Hilltoppers 22-11, and had a 23-11 edge in turnovers.
Vinci had the hot hand on Dec. 27 as he scored 16 points and pulled down 12 rebounds to lead Brattleboro to a 47-36 victory over host team Spaulding in the Spaulding Tournament at the Barre Auditorium. Heydinger added 13 points.
Vinci stayed hot the following night, as he poured in 21 points to lead the Colonels to a 58-48 win over Vergennes. Pelz-Walsh and Heydinger chipped in 13 and 11 points, respectively.
• Bellows Falls jumped out to a 22-6 lead, and stayed in charge the rest of the way in a 62-53 win over the Springfield Cosmos at Holland Gymnasium on Dec. 19. The Terriers had three players in double figures as Mike Hall (18 points), Kendrick Mills (16), and Logan Spaulding (13) led the way.
On Dec. 22, the Terriers won at Windsor, 50-40. Hall was again the top scorer with 21 points. In winning their first three games of the season, BF equalled the number of wins the squad had in the previous two seasons combined.
• Twin Valley took plenty of shots, but few of them were falling in a 74-35 loss to Rochester in the opening game of the Bob Abrahamson Tournament in Proctor on Dec. 19. Cade Nesbitt led the Wildcats with 10 points, while Colin Lozito had 9. In the consolation game the following night, the Wildcats lost in overtime to the Green Mountain Chieftains, 54-49. Lozito was the high scorer with 19.
The Wildcats had better luck in the opener of the Green Mountain Holiday Tournament in Chester. In the first game on Dec. 28, the Wildcats rallied from a 14-1 first half deficit to beat the Chieftains, 45-41. Lozito led Twin Valley with 10 points and 8 assists. Sam Molner and Dal Nesbitt each added 9, and Cade Nesbitt and Hunter Therrien each added 8.
Twin Valley faced their archrivals, Leland & Gray, in the championship game the following night and the Rebels won it, 54-29. Bobby Culver and Brandon Reilly scored 13 and 11 points, respectively, for the Rebels, which held the Wildcats to just two points in the third quarter. Cade Nesbitt led Twin Valley with 12 points.
• Leland & Gray overcame a sloppy night of basketball to come away with a 52-38 home win over the Poultney Blue Devils on Dec. 20. Eric Ginter led the Rebels with 15 points. Reilly followed with 13 and Lasch finished with 12. Sean Shepardson had a game-high 16 to lead the Blue Devils.
In their first game of the GM Tourney on Dec. 28, the Rebels took care of the Springfield Cosmos, 51-23. Reilly was high scorer with 12 points, including three three-pointers. Lasch added 9 points, while Caleb Bristol and Bobby Culver added 8 each.
Hockey
• The Brattleboro girls entered the yuletide with a 9-1 win over Woodstock at Withington Rink on Dec. 23. Miranda Moseley was in the giving spirit, setting up 4 goals and scoring one herself.
Michelle Reffi, Karen Koes, and Maddie Rollins had two goals each. Rebecca Potter and Amber Bessette also scored, and Emily Wilson served up 2 assists. Goalie Lou Lou Terwilliger took a shutout into the final period before giving up Woodstock's only goal midway through the third.
Nordic skiing
• The Brattleboro Colonels had to journey up Sutton, near the Canadian border in the Northeast Kingdom, last week to find enough snow to race on. Despite having to compete on an icy, scratchy course in their first event of the season, the girls team finished second overall, behind Mount Mansfield.
Brattleboro's Halie Lange was the top girls finisher, covering the 5K freestyle course in 17 minutes, 4 seconds. Teammate Leah Silverman placed 15th in 19:26, and Emma Straus (21st in 19:38), Helen Manning (24th in 20:01), and Linnea Jahn (27th in 20:11) rounded out the Colonels' top 5.
The Colonel boys finished sixth. Graham Glennon was the top Brattleboro finisher, taking 14th with a time of 16:05. Jacob Ellis came in 29th in 17:09, followed by Noah Borochoff-Porte (37th in 17:40), Austin Lester (41st in 17:53), and Oliver Pomazi (55th in 19:01).
Wrestling
• On Dec. 17, the BF-Hartford wrestling team placed seventh in the annual Ken Harrison Memorial Lions Club Tournament in Granville, N.Y., which drew 16 schools from Vermont and New York.
Nolan Viens led the Terriers by winning the 145-pound title by taking three consecutive matches. Freshman Kyle Record advanced to the championship match in the 152-pound weight class, Austin Viens went 3-1 and placed third in the 106-pound class, and Patrick Libuda went 1-2 on the day.
Clark remains undefeated
• West Dover's Kelly Clark is in the midst of a remarkable streak of success as a professional snowboarder. Ranked No. 1 in the world, the two-time Olympic medalist and U.S. Snowboarding Team member has been untouchable in women's halfpipe since the beginning of last season.
Clark won her 12th consecutive Superpipe contest when she won the first Winter Dew Tour event of the 2011-2012 season on Dec. 17 in Breckenridge, Colo. Her score of 91.25 edged out fellow Vermonter Gretchen Bleiler's 90.25.
Earlier, on Dec. 11 at the U.S. Grand Prix of snowboarding at Copper Mountain in Colorado, Clark set more world records by winning a total of 25 podium spots on the Grand Prix circuit and the highest number of gold medals ever won by a female at the Grand Prixs.
She spent the holidays practicing in Europe to prepare for the next big event, the TTR O'Neill Evolution in Davos, Switzerland, scheduled for early January.
Girls' lacrosse goes indoors
• The Brattleboro Recreation & Parks Department will be sponsoring a girls' lacrosse open gym program for middle school and high school students. It will be held in the Gym at Crocker Hall at the Austine School, 60 Austine Drive, on Sunday afternoons from 2-4 p.m. on Jan. 8, 22, and 29; Feb. 5, 12, 19, and 26; and March 4, 11, and 18.
Brattleboro girls' lacrosse coach Mandy Lonergan will supervise the program. The cost of the program will be $3 per session. Lacrosse sticks, eye goggles, and balls will be provided. Players of all experience levels are welcome.
Girls attending will need to supply their own mouth guard and clean, non-marking footwear. Registration is not required.
For more information, call 802-254-5808 or visit www.brattleboro.org.