Don't tell Williamstown's Brittney Martin that basketball isn't a contact sport as she gets blasted by Poultney's Ali Jones in last Wednesday night's playoff game at Parks Memorial Gymnasium. Brittney had 13 points as the Lady Blue Devils downed Poultney 48-36 to advance to the Div.IV quarter-finals. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News All good things must come to an end. And so it was for the Williamstown High Girl’s basketball team last week. In the span of just three days the Lady Blue Devils saw their hopes of Div. IV glory raised high on Wednesday and then dashed on Friday. Wednesday night they defeated Poultney 48-36, at home, in the first round of the playoffs setting up a meeting at arch rival Twinfield in the Quarterfinals.

On Friday night the Twinfield Lady Trojans used a devastating bombing attack to crush the Lady ’Devils hopes with a convincing 59-50 victory and bring the Williamstown Girl’s season to a close. The Williamstown Girl’s discovered the truth of that old Vermont basketball adage: “It’s tough to beat a team three times in a season”, The Lady Devil’s wound up the season with a record of 16-6, their best record in over 25 years according to coach Sid Sweet.

Williamstown sophomore Lourdes "Lulu" Perry muscles her way to the hoop in last Friday night's Div. IV quarterfinal at Twinfield. "Lulu" led the Lady Devils with 17 points but Williamstown fell to the Lady Trojans 59-50 to finish their season at 16-6. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News On Wednesday night Williamstown’s Parks Memorial Gymnasium was packed and vocal as the fifth seeded Williamstown Lady Blue devils hosted the twelfth seeded Lady Blue Devils from Poultney. Only one thing was certain when the ball went up in the air shortly after 7 p.m. – somebody nicknamed the Blue Devils would advance in the Div. IV tournament.

The Lady 'Devils senior center,Emma Lamson, (Center) shows the determination she has displayed throughout her varsity career in the Div.IV quarterfinal game at Twinfield last Friday night. Despite efforts like this the Lady 'Devils fell to Twinfield 59-50 and ended their season at 16-6. Photo by Bill Croney, The Northfield News Williamstown started out like a clap of thunder as they jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead and it looked like they would run away and hide. But Poultney’s version of the Blue Devils had a little something to say about that. Poultney’s Liza Mason canned a long three that cut that the Williamstown lead in half near the midway point the quarter and the Poultney offense seemed to come alive and the home crowd was a little quieter. They were even quieter still when Emma Lamson picked up her second foul at the 4:11 mark of the first quarter and the crowd was positively silent when she limped off the floor after the call. “ Emma got two fouls early. She did take a shot in the leg earlier. It was like a stinger. But she’s OK. She has been sick all week. She’s had a respiratory infection so we’ll try to go as long as we can without her,” said coach Sweet. Brittany Farnham came in for Emma and did a great job as the Lady ‘Devils geared up to operate without their biggest player.

The Williamstown Ladies countered with two quick hoops to stretch the lead to 10-3 but the Poultney full court press forced some turnovers and the Ladies from the slate town had closed the gap to 12-9 by the end of the first quarter.

After Williamstown stretched the lead to 15-9 two minutes into the second stanza the Poultney offense went to work. With 3:40 left in the quarter Poultney had closed the Williamstown lead to 17-16, and with just over two minutes to go in the first half Poultney’s Ali Jones drained a three point bomb from deep in the left corner and the visiting Blue Devil’s gained the lead for the first time at 22—21. Just seconds later Williamstown’s Beth Carrier answered the Poultney three-ball with a bomb of her own to put the home Blue & White back in front to stay 24- 22. A Brittney Farnham hoop added two more and at halftime Williamstown took a 26-22 lead into the locker room. The large home crowd was restive to say the least.

Any worries that the home contingent had at halftime were put to rest when the Lady ‘Devils came out for the second half. Williamstown’s offense was working and the defense was outstanding. They opened up with a 7-0 run and didn’t have to look back. The Lady’ Devils outscored Poultney 14-6 as Brittney Martin scored 5 of her 13 points and Kristin Brown added 4 of her game high 15 to give Williamstown a

40-28 lead after three quarters.. The defense was outstanding , and it was keyed by a player who hasn’t gotten a lot of ink this season. “ Brittany Farnham, I think, played a heck of a game. She was the catalyst in our moving on in the tournament. She brought all the energy on the defensive end and kept the ball alive on the offensive end,”

said coach Sweet.

The Williamstown offensive effort success rate dropped off in the fourth quarter as the Lady ‘Devils only registered eight points but the defense held the Poultney version of the Blue Devil’s to eight as well.

The twelve point lead held and when the final buzzer sounded the 48-36 Williamstown victory had set up a Friday night quarterfinal matchup with arch rival Twinfield.

The Williamstown defense was the key in the Poultney win. The Lady ‘Devils held the big Poultney weapon, Ali Jones to 11 and Poultney’s high scorer, Whitney Bogucki, only got 12. (Note: look out for Poultney in the future, they had only one senior on the roster and Jones and Bogucki are only sophomores.) Williamstown was paced by Kristin Brown with 15 while Brittney Martin added 13 and Emma Lamson chipped in with

11 in the Poultney win. Beth Carrier had a bomb for 3 and “Lulu” Perry put down four points while Brittany Farnham had a basket for two in addition to her outstanding defensive effort in the 48-36 win over “the other Blue Devils”.

Friday night, at Twinfield, in the Div. IV quarterfinal things were decidedly different. In front of a full house of very enthusiastic fans from both sides things stayed even for a while. But then the Twinfield bomber squadron swooped in from some unnamed airfield and the three point shot was king for the Ladies of Troy in the first half as Twinfield downed the Lady ‘Devils 59-50 and ended the Williamstown Girl’s season.

Defense was the name of the game for the first six minutes and change of the game as the fifth seeded Lady Blue Devils battled fourth seed Twinfield.. Both teams had trouble with the other’s tenacious pressing in the early going. Each team forced shots and turned the ball over numerous times in the game’s opening Minutes.. With 2:44 left in the first quarter Twinfield clung to a slim 7-5 lead. Then the Lady Trojans called for air support.

The bomber’s squadron commander was sophomore Kaitlin Lyford who launched numerous 3 point attempts and was successful on 3 long range bombs in the first quarter that accounted for 9 of the Lady Trojan’s 13 first quarter points. After one quarter Twinfield held a 13-9 lead. “We wanted them to shoot over us. They had only hit two three pointers on us in both games this year. But they were hitting them. It was a coaches mistake, I should have pulled us out of the zone sooner,” coach Sweet said. “I didn’t think it would stay. I didn’t think they could make that many in a row.”

Williamstown made the adjustment but Twinfield countered and found ways to work the ball inside.

In addition to solving the Williamstown defense Twinfield had a tough defense of their own, Williamstown only managed five points in the second quarter. The Lady Trojans packed the zone and boxed out well on the defensive boards. “One and done” was the story for the Lady Devil’s most of the rest of the way. By halftime the Twinfield lead had stretched to 25- 14. Fifteen of the 25 Twinfield points came on long range bombing runs. “Lulu” Perry scored 8 of her team high 17 points in the first half to keep Williamstown at least within sight of the Trojans.

A 7-2 Twinfield run to open the second half put the Lady Trojan lead at

32-16 but Williamstown still had a little something left in the tank.

The Lady ‘Devils put a 10-0 run together in the third quarter and when “Lulu” potted a put back with 2:30 left in the third the Lady ‘Devils had closed the Twinfield lead to 32-26. That however would be as close as Williamstown would get on this night. After three the Trojan lead was back up to nine at 41-32. Williamstown’s outstanding senior guard,Kristin Brown, went down with a hip pointer after a collision near mid-court late in the third quarter and the large contingent of Lady ‘Devil fans that made the trip to Marshfield held their collective breath as she lay writhing on the court. After what seemed to be an endless stretch of time, but was probably about three minutes, she limped to the bench under her own power and then made her way to the locker room. She was able to return mid-way through the fourth quarter.

The Twinfield lead bounced back and fourth between seven and eleven points in the fourth quarter. Although the outcome was not in doubt foul shots provided the final score as Twinfield defeated the Williamstown Girls 59-50. “We didn’t have our best game,” said coach Sweet. “We chased and we lost our composure at times but I don’t think this one game says anything about our team. We had an amazing year. It hurts right now but when you look back we did some great things this year,” coach Sweet added.

Lourdes (Lulu) Perry racked up 17 points to lead the Lady “Devils. Emma Lamson had 15 while fellow senior Kristin Brown added 4 and another senior, Beth Carrier threw in 6 for the Blue & white Girls. Junior Brittney Martin rounded out the scoring with 8 for the 16-6 Lady Blue Devils.