BARRE, Vt. — Roll the dice when Thetford Academy’s and Windsor High’s girls basketball teams meet. Whether it’s in the regular season or late in the VPA Division III tournament, you’d have just as much luck predicting the winner in a game of chance.
This time, Thetford’s staunch defense won the day — holding Windsor junior star and 1,000-point scorer Olivia Rockwood to just one point in the second half of Thursday’s 55-48 victory in the D-III semifinals at the Barre Auditorium.
The Panthers’ Emi Vaughan led the way with a game-high 15 points, the second time in as many playoff games she’s led the team in scoring. Sophomore Namya Benjamin added 13 points off the bench. Thetford takes on No. 8 Oxbow, which defeated No. 5 Green Mountain on Thursday, in the D-III championship on Saturday night at the Aud.
“The team played well, so I played well, honestly,” said Benjamin, who hurt her left ankle going for a loose late in the game and needed to be helped off the court. “It was a good atmosphere, the crowd was good, everyone was hyped up. I think that’s what helped me off the bench.”
Benjamin scored a team-high 16 points in Thetford’s 52-49 regular-season win over Windsor on Dec. 27.
“I seem to play really against Windsor,” she said. “I don’t know why.”
Make that six straight finals appearances for the Thetford dynasty, a streak that broke the all-time record for consecutive championship appearances last held by Lake Region, which went 1-4 in five straight finals from 2007-11, according to Vermont high school sports historian Paul Stanfield. The Panthers won state titles in 2014 and 2017, defeating Windsor in the latter. The Yellowjackets won the D-III title last season, their first crown since 2011, with a 51-34 win over TA.
“The girls did everything we asked,” Thetford head coach Eric Ward said. “They weren’t perfect. We’ll have to be perfect Saturday night.”
In Thursday’s semifinal, Windsor’s offense fell short. Rockwood was held to 14 points on five field goals and a foul shot, a body of work that included three circus 3-pointers from deep. Adi Prior added 11 points and Evelyn Page scored 10 points in the loss. The Yellowjackets finish their season at 17-5 overall.
It was the latest in stretch of nine meetings over the last three seasons between Thetford and Windsor. They split their regular-season meetings: A Windsor victory in its season opener, 47-39, on Dec. 11 and a Thetford response before New Year’s Eve. The Panthers went on to lose only once more in their final 13 games before the tournament. The Yellowjackets finished the regular season 12-3 in their final 15 games.
“That’s the best I’ve seen Thetford play this year, and I’ve scouted them four times,” Windsor head coach Bruce Mackay said. “Their ball movement, their finishing; they shot the ball well today. Give them a lot of credit. They earned it.”
The Panthers led from wire to wire to improve to 19-2 overall.
Thetford took a 15-13 lead into the second quarter, lifted by Benjamin, who had five points off the bench for the Panthers in opening stanza. Vaughan led Thetford with seven points in the first half, helping the Panthers establish a 26-23 lead at halftime.
Rockwood hit back-to-back 3-pointers for Windsor, her first six points of the night, in the first quarter, and finished the half with 13 points. Prior scored the Yellowjackets’ first seven points and finished the half with nine.
“She made those big 3s in the first half; we had to make some adjustments,” Ward said. “She can shoot from way out, circus shots. … The key for us was we were playing good team defense. Olivia (Rockwood) was getting some stuff … but the kids just played great team defense. They bought into what we asked them to do.”
Thetford created some separation in the third quarter. It came out of halftime scoring six points in the first two minutes and outscored the Yellowjackets, 14-8, to build a 40-31 lead headed into the fourth period.
The Panthers were 12-of-18 from the free-throw line in the fourth but were outscored, 17-15, in the final eight minutes as Windsor attempted to close the gap. It was too little, too late for the defending D-III champs.
“We couldn’t penetrate in the paint as much as we wanted to; they took that away,” Mackay said. “So we had to look for the 3-pointer, and our shots weren’t dropping. … We just made poor decisions with the ball. We’d get a good rebound and throw it away.”
Windsor graduates just captain Brooke McKeen from its roster and returns Rockwood and Angelina Bigwood next winter.
“They worked hard,” Mackay said of his team. “A lot of our young kids got to see what this place is like.”
The Panthers beat Oxbow twice in the regular season by a combined score of 125-59: a 67-22 win on Jan. 22 in Thetford and a 58-37 victory in Thetford’s regular season finale. But Ward isn’t so worried about complacency headed into Saturday’s final as the experienced favorites.
“They’re on a great run right now; they’re feeling good about themselves,” Ward said of the Olympians. “We can’t go into Saturday night thinking we have the game won. … It’s going to be an all-Upper Valley final. We haven’t had this in a while. It should be a good rivalry game.”
Saturday’s final is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at the Aud.
Josh Weinreb can be reached at jweinreb@vnews.com or 603-727-3306.