Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News The Lady Devil's Bethany Carrier (in white) was the high scorer for Williamstown against Lake Region last Wednesday night in Barton. The rarified air of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom agreed with the senior, she scored 13 of her team's 29 points as the Lady Devil's fell to the powerful Rangers 53-29. The Williamstown Girl’s basketball team got their second dose of castor oil for the season last Wednesday night when they traveled to Lake Region to battle the top shelf Rangers.

For anyone not old enough to remember what castor oil is, it is a terrible tasting patent medicine that ultimately does some good. So it was for the under-strength lady Devils when they went up to Barton to tangle with one of the state’s top teams. The theory is that you can only get better when you play the best . Two of the Ranger starters have full free rides to Division I colleges next year and they each have been rated as being among the top 100 players in New England.

Lake region simply rolled over Williamstown 53-20 in the opening game of the season and the Lady Devil’s improved by nine points last Wednesday night when they bowed to the Rangers 53-29.

The Lady Devils were missing their biggest player, Emma Lamson, who was ill, and another big cog in the wheel, Brittney Martin who was away with her family for the holidays.

But that didn’t stop the Lady Devils from giving it their best. “We knew what we would be facing going in and our goal was to improve our game overall and try to control the boards much better than we did in the First game,” said coach Sid Sweet. “ We closed the gap from the first game. We got great rebounding from a total team effort and freshman Heather Bailey, filling in for Emma underneath, did a great Job. Heather Gonier got injured about a minute into the game so we were down to eight players but the girls responded well,” the coach said.

Williamstown stayed close until late the second quarter. It was 18-9, Rangers, with a minute and a half to go in the first half. But then the wheels fell off. Four straight ‘Devils turnovers gave Lake region the opening that they needed. Lake Region went on a 12-0 run and in the span of just a minute and a half the Ranger lead ballooned out to 30-9 by the intermission. In the second half Williamstown stayed closed, Lake Region only out-scored Williamstown 23-20 in the second stanza.

The Final was Lake Region 53 Williamstown 29.

Beth Carrier led the Williamstown scorers with 13 points. The Lady Devils will be back in action this weekend when they take part in the Woodsville (N.H.) tournament on Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday game begins at 3:30.