The Blue Devil's Steven Manwaring makes a strong move to the hoop against Concord in last Wednesday night's game in Williamstown. Manwaring had 24 points and 16 rebounds as the Blue Devil Boys rolled over the Wildcats 54-30. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News The Big Blue Machine that is the Williamstown Boy’s basketball team rolled to a pair of easy victories last week and extended it's unbeaten string to eight games. Last Wednesday night the Blue Devil boys cruised past Concord 54-30 and on Saturday afternoon they crunched Craftsbury 76-35. The wins put the Blue Devil boys at 15-1 and kept them in the hunt for first place in the state’s Div. IV index points rankings.

The game against Concord began with what is by now a familiar scenario.

The opposition trying to get the ball past half court by going into the teeth of the Blue Devil half court trap defense and failing miserably.

Errant passes found their way into Williamstown hands and uncontested layups ensued. After one quarter Williamstown led 21-9.and then the defense got serious. They shut out the Wildcats for the entire second stanza. By halftime the Blue Devil’s led Concord 33-9. In the second half the Blue devil bench got a lot of minutes and Williamstown cruised to the 54- 30 victory. Steven Manwaring had a big night for the Blue & White. He racked up 24 points (14 in the first half) to lead all scorers. Ray Burgos threw in 11 points and Troy Laughlin added 10 in the win over Concord.

The coach also admitted to being perhaps more of a perfectionist than he would like, “At halftime I started by saying that we weren’t playing the best defense. Then I looked at the book and realized that we hadn’t allowed them any points in the second quarter.

I’m too much of a perfectionist, I guess,” the smiling coach said.

Saturday afternoon’s game against Craftsbury started out on a serious note. The Blue Devil’s paid tribute to former Craftsbury Player Ephen Willey, who was killed in a snowmobile accident this year. He had played against the Blue Devils and scored 10 points in the first meeting of the two teams. “ We honored him during the game. We retired his number 11 for the game and Mitch St.Onge wore number 12 instead of his usual number 11. The players all had a black patch on the shoulder strap of their uniforms as well,” said coach Carrier. Once the game tipped off it was like Yogi said :“Like de-ja vu all over again. The fearsome Blue Devil trap was working to perfection and the outcome was the same as in games past. By Halftime the Blue Devil’s had ballooned out to a 38-15 lead and never had to look back, Ray Burgos led the ‘Devil scorers with 17 points and also added six rebounds, six assists and six steals. Johnny Earls poured through ten points to go along with his five assists and 2 steals. Nick Gagnon had a productive afternoon as well. He scored six points, had five assists, and four steals as the Blue Devils rolled to the thirty point win 68-38. “Logan Clark gave us some very good minutes. The sophomore really played terrific defense against their point guard. And he got two points and two steals as well,” coach Carrier said. “This type of game gives us a chance to work on new defensive and offensive sets. And it lets our bench get quality minutes. It lets us try new combinations of players,” the coach said.

The Blue Devil’s boys Senior night will be next Wednesday, Feb 10. when the Boys host Twinfield.