Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News Williamstown's Troy Laughlin battled Hazen’s Ryan Tatro all night long in the Blue Devil’s 55-54 upsent win over the defending Div. III state champs in Williamstown last Wednesday night. Laughlin poured in 22 points and nabbed 10 rebounds as the senior captain led Williamstown to the Devils seventh win of the season and an unspotted 7 - 0 record. It may have been snowy white and below freezing outside last Wednesday night but the crowd inside the Williamstown High gym was white hot.

They were fired up by one of the best high school basketball games of the season. They watched, and screamed, and yelled as their beloved Div. IV Blue Devils upset Div. III powerhouse Hazen 55-54. They watched a much smaller team stay with a huge team by using speed, quickness and defense. They watched great individual efforts at both ends of the floor. And they watched a prime example of Williamstown’s “third quarter thunder”. In short, they watched some excellent basketball.

The icing on the cake was that the Blue Devils stayed spotless and stretched their record to 7- 0 heading into the New Year. “The kids are really excited,” said a breathless coach Jack Carrier after the game.

“These seniors have never beaten Hazen. I’m not exactly sure how long it’s been since we’ve beaten them. But I know it’s been quite some time.”

The sizable contingent of fans that made the trek down from Hardwick were sure and confident about the outcome as the teams took the floor for the pre game warm-ups. After all, the Wildcats were a division bigger than the Blue Devils and they were they returned loads of veterans from last year’s Div.III State Championship team. That was all the “stuff on paper.” In reality the Wildcats fielded a positively huge team with a front line of 6’7” Billy Boyd, 6’5”Tanner Benjamin and , 6’4” Ryan Tatro against Williamstown’s 6’4” Troy Laughlin, and 6’1”

Steven Manwaring and 5’8” Ray Burgos. During the warm ups a writer from the “Hardwick Gazette” was informed that Williamstown had a strong team. He rolled his eyes and said “They can’t stay with this team.

We’ve got three college caliber players up front.” He was wrong. On paper it may have looked like a mismatch, but apparently the Blue Devils never got the memo.

In the opening two minutes it looked like Hazen would run away and hide as they jumped out to a 6-0 lead. But the Blue Devils settled down and righted the ship. When the buzzer sounded to end the first quarter Hazen hung on to a slim 13-12 lead. The quizzical look on the faces of the players on the Hazen bench said it all. “Who are these guys? Nobody stays with us like that!” They had to get used to it. It would be basket for basket the rest of the way.

Williamstown stayed close throughout the second quarter even though speedy guard Ray Burgos picked up his third personal foul and had to sit down. The bench and guard Johnny Earls picked up the slack, though, and at the intermission the Hazen lead was only two at 25-23.

“At halftime I told them that we proved we could stay with Hazen and now we had to go out and have a third quarter like we have been having all year,” said coach Carrier.

Third quarter thunder arrived in the hands of Troy Laughlin on this night. The 6’4” senior forward poured through 10 of his game high 22 in the third stanza as the Blue Devils out-scored the wildcats 16-12 and midway through the third quarter even had a six point lead. “Troy played really good ball, tonight,” said coach Carrier. “He stepped up.

He’s our captain, our leader, and he showed why with his work ethic tonight. As a coach he’s a dream player to have.” But Billy Boyd and the Wildcats weren’t done. They closed that Blue Devil lead to a bucket by the end of the period and they headed into the final quarter with Williamstown out in front 39-37. Williamstown held the slim lead without one of their starters on the floor for most of the quarter.

“Ray Burgos picked up his fourth foul early in the third, and I didn’t put him back in until the five minute mark of the fourth. The whole team responded very well. The bench stepped up and did the job.

Everybody gave it everything they had,” said coach Carrier.

The fourth quarter was once again basket for basket and once again Troy Laughlin came up big for the Blue Devils. The team captain added six more points in the final stanza despite playing in pain. “ His leg was cramping up on him in the sec- ond half,” coach Carrier said. “With two minutes to go I asked him if he could stay out there and he looked at the scoreboard and told me he could.”

The defense took over for Williamstown in he final period. The three-quarter court press worked to perfection and threw the powerful Wildcats off balance. “We tried to trap in the corners and make them take quick shots, not their best shots. We didn’t want to give them time to set up. And that worked,” coach Carrier said. Steven Manwaring gave the Blue Devils the lead for good with Just :35 left in the game Laughlin and Steven Manwaring combined for 10 Williamstown fourth quarter points while Billy Boyd and Ryan Tatro poured in 10 for the Wildcats at the other end of the floor in the final frame. Hazen out-scored Williamstown 17-16 in the fourth quarter but the two point advantage the ‘Devils had built up after three quarters held up and the final was Williamstown 55 Hazen 54.

Troy Laughlin’s 22 points led all scorers and he also pulled down ten rebounds. and Steven Manwaring added 12 points and grabbed ten rebounds for the Blue Devils. Billy Boyd and Tanner Benjamin had 14 each for Hazen while Ryan Tatro added 13 for the Wildcats. The vaunted Hazen front line accounted for 41 of the Wildcats 54 points but on this night it wouldn’t be enough.

“We played our game on the right night,” coach Carrier said. “We played it against a strong Div.III opponent.”

The Blue Devils will be back in action this weekend when they take their 7-0 record across the Connecticut river Jan. 2 & 3 in the Woodsville (N.H.) tournament.