-The third time was a charm for the Fair Haven Slaters, who punched their ticket for the Division II state football finals with a dominating 34-7 victory over the Bellows Falls Terriers at Hadley Field on Nov. 2.
The Slaters made it to the semifinals in 2022 and 2023. Now, they will face top-seeded Rice for the state title this Saturday in St. Johnsbury.
In their regular season meeting in Week 5, BF pulled out a 14-7 win over the Slaters in Fair Haven. This game looked like it would be the same. Fair Haven led 7-0 at halftime with their only score coming on a 3-yard run by quarterback Cody Adams with 4:19 left in the first quarter.
BF struggled to put together a scoring drive in the first half as the Slaters mostly contained the Terriers' running attack, but as the Terriers took the field for the second half, they were confident that they could turn things around.
That feeling did not last long. On the opening kickoff, Fair Haven's Sam Kyhill fumbled a reverse handoff, but scooped it up, broke a tackle, and streaked down the sideline to the end zone for a 80-yard touchdown.
Trailing 14-0, the Terriers seemed to catch a break when they recovered a Fair Haven fumble on the BF 31 with 9:04 left in the third quarter, but they could not get the ball past midfield. After a punt, the Slaters marched down the field and scored their third touchdown on a 9-yard pass from Adams to Jack Almeida with 4:53 left in the third.
Now BF was in trouble and needed to score some points in a hurry. But disaster struck on the first play after the ensuing kickoff when Fair Haven defensive back Konnor Savage picked off a pass from BF quarterback Eli Allbee and returned it 30 yards for a touchdown with 4:11 left in the third.
With a 28-0 deficit to make up, the Terriers began to chip away as Allbee connected with tight end Will Hallock for a 40-yard touchdown with 1:45 left in the third. BF would get no closer as a pair of fumbles derailed scoring drives in the fourth quarter. Fair Haven got its final touchdown with 1:06 to play on an 8-yard run by Adams.
"We got beat by a very good football team today," BF Coach Bob Lockerby said after the game. "They looked faster and quicker off the ball than they did the first time we saw them."
The Fair Haven offense did not have an outstanding game. Adams had 49 passing yards and 44 rushing yards. Sam Kyhill had 49 rushing yards, while his younger brother Max Kyhill had 34 rushing yards. But the Slaters' play on defense and special teams more than made up for any shortcomings on offense.
The Terriers had to prepare for the game with heavy hearts after the death of a classmate, Liam "Lee" Parker, who died Oct. 22 in a motor vehicle accident. His wake was on Oct. 29, with a celebration of life gathering the following day. Fair Haven paid tribute to Parker by presenting to the BF captains before the game a bouquet of flowers and a condolence card for Parker's family.
"The kids did a great job this week considering all the stuff they had to deal with," Lockerby said. "This is a good football team and we had a good season. It just wasn't our day."
Running back Carson Clark had 101 rushing yards to lead the Terriers. Allbee had 62 passing yards. The Terriers finished the season at 7-3, and will lose Clark, Allbee, Hallock, fullback Joshua Streeter, kicker Tristan Boylan, and linemen Zimm Bugatch, Damien Stebbins, Jaden Crawford, Yesiel Rivera, and Connor Harrington to graduation.
Winooski tops Twin Valley to repeat as champs
• The two heavyweights of Division IV boys' soccer - top-seeded Twin Valley and third-seeded Winooski - faced off on Nov. 2 at Alumni Field in Rutland in a rematch of last year's title game.
Winooski, the two-time defending champs, retained their title with a 4-3 overtime victory.
Trailing 2-0 at halftime, Winooski rallied back to force overtime. For the championship game, the teams played under a sudden death format of two 15-minute overtimes, with the first team to score winning the game. If neither team scores, penalty kicks are used as the tiebreaker.
Oliver Mathys-Vallario made sure the game didn't need penalty kicks to settle matters as he scored his third goal of the game in overtime to give the Spartans its third consecutive state championship. Joseph Abdallah also scored for the Spartans.
To get to the title game, the Wildcats defeated fifth-seeded Richford, 4-3, in a semifinal at Hayford Field on Oct. 30. Carson McHale and Steven Oyer broke a 2-2 half-time tie with goals in the second half. McHale and Brayden Brown both scored in the first half.
Emilio Schneider scored all of Richford's goals. Twin Valley goalkeeper Kaelyn Lackey made four saves in goal for the win.
Twin Valley ended its season with a 13-4 record.
GM boys win state soccer title
• Andrei Solzhenitsyn's goal in overtime gave third-seeded Green Mountain a 3-2 victory over top-seeded Stowe in the Division III state boys' soccer championship game at Alumni Field in Rutland on Nov. 2.
Evan Kirdzik assisted on the winning goal, heading the ball to Solzhenitsyn, who was in front of the Stowe goal to deflect it in 10:32 into the first overtime.
Raz Backlund scored first for GM to tie the game at 1-1 at halftime. GM then took the lead with a 25-yard blast from Joachim Gibson with 21:12 remaining in regulation. Stowe's Parker Guffey scored with 18:30 left to force overtime and set up the drama that ended with Solzhenitsyn's "golden goal."
Stowe, the defending state champions, has long dominated Division III boys' soccer, compiling a 14-3 record in the championship game. Green Mountain, playing in its fourth state final in six years, won its first title since 2019 as they wrapped up a 17-1 season.
GM advanced into the title game with a 1-0 win over Peoples Academy in Morrisville on Oct. 30. Backlund successfully converted a penalty kick in the first half for the only goal of the game.
BF defeated in field hockey semis
• Bellows Falls saw its bid for an unbeaten championship season end as the second-seeded Terriers lost to the No. 3 South Burlington Wolves, 5-0, in a semifinal game at Middlebury College on Oct. 30.
While BF had beaten South Burlington, 3-2, in September, that victory came on a grass field, a surface they seldom see. On Middlebury's artificial turf field, the Wolves used the familiarity with the faster surface that comes with playing all their home games on turf to score early and often.
The defending champions scored three times in a four-minute span of the first quarter to put the game out of reach. By the time the Terriers began to adjust to the artificial turf and began to slow down the South Burlington attack, the damage had been done.
Sawyer Bailey had two goals to lead the the Wolves. Rosa DiGuilian, Lily O'Brien, and Bella Gordon also scored.
It still was a great season for the Terriers, whose season ended with a 14-1-1 record. The Terriers, who lost in the championship game to South Burlington in 2021, last won state titles in 2018 and 2020.
Senior bowling roundup
• Week 9 of the fall/winter season of the Brattleboro Senior Bowling League at Brattleboro Bowl on Oct. 31 saw first place Number 3 (32-13) maintain a one-game lead on second place Spare Change (31-14). Slo Movers (26-19) was third, followed by Candi Men (26-19), Lucky Strikes (24-21), Pin Heads (21-24), Ricks Picks (19.5-25.5), Wunderkind (16.5-28.5), Jerry's Team (16-29), and Aging Teens (12-33).
Pat Bentrup had the women's high handicap game (265), while Doris Lake had the high handicap series (671). Peter Deyo had the men's high handicap game (255) and Milt Sherman had the high handicap series (693). Ricks Picks had the high team handicap game (881) and Lucky Strikes had the high handicap series (2,474).
Deyo had the men's high scratch series (633) with games of 255, 200, and 194; while Sherman had a 621 series. John Walker had a 588 series with games of 225 and 204, Chuck Adams also had a 588 series with games of 215 and 193, Warren Corriveau Sr. had a 578 series with a 236 game, Robert Rigby had a 554 series with a 210 game, Rick Wescott had a 507 series with a 190 game, and Fred Ashworth had a 503 series. John Laamanen had a 190 game.
Carol Gloski again had the women's high scratch series (548), with games of 166 and 154. Bentrup had the high scratch game (185) Diane Cooke had a 178 game and Pam Greenblott rolled a 162.
Randolph T. Holhut, deputy editor of this newspaper, has written this column since 2010 and has covered sports in Windham County since the 1980s. Readers can send him sports information at [email protected].
This Sports column by Randolph T. Holhut was written for The Commons.