QUECHEE — The Mid Vermont Christian School has as much depth on its girls basketball team as ever thanks to Sharon Academy’s recent decision not to field one.
The Eagles’ melded squad, which features four players from TSA, fell to Blue Mountain, 50-45, on Thursday in Quechee.
Sophomore Hayley Goodwin had an outstanding performance with 23 points and seven steals, but it wasn’t enough to prevent MVCS’ first loss of the season. Thursday’s victory by the Bucks (4-1) doesn’t change the prospects for the Eagles (2-1), who have plenty of potential to make a run in VPA Division IV after a 15-win campaign a year ago.
The new additions seem to be gelling with the returnees.
“I’m happy with the players that came down,” said Chris Goodwin, the Eagles’ coach. “They have great attitudes. They’re willing to step in and do whatever we ask them to.”
Two of Thursday’s starters — Lydia Eastman (two points) and Emma Foster (six points) — played for the Phoenix last year. Fellow starters Hayley Goodwin, Nykrisha Jenks (six points) and Sydney Goodwin (five points) attend MVCS.
“It’s definitely different, because we have new players and it makes up a lot of our team,” said Sydney Goodwin, the team’s captain. “We’ve been playing with, like, seven players for the past four years. It’s definitely a lot better.”
The junior seemed unsurprised by her younger sister’s standout performance.
“She normally (scores a lot of points),” Sydney Goodwin said. “That’s like not really anything special, but I think overall we just have to finish our layups and play defense better.”
Like his daughter, Coach Goodwin spoke to areas of improvement for the Eagles.
“My biggest concern during the game was just they were running us off screens,” Chris Goodwin said. “And we weren’t getting through them. We weren’t switching, we weren’t talking, we weren’t being nasty on defense. We were letting them dictate and when we let a team like that, who’s that physical dictate, they’re going to get buckets off it.”
The MVCS coach wants his team to play with an edge, especially given their newfound depth.
“I don’t really want to call it just nastiness,” he said. “I want them to be intense all the time. I want them to be intense on defense, and we’ve always had an issue with a lack of intensity and we need to be better with that in general.”
The Eagles scored on the first play of the game after Emma Foster won the jump ball by tipping it to Sydney Goodwin, who assisted Hayley Goodwin for a fast-break layup. The Eagles proceeded to build a 7-2 lead, which proved to be their largest of the night.
The Bucks, who were paced by Lauryn Alley’s 18 points, came back and led, 9-8, after the first quarter and 21-16 at halftime. MVCS was initially careless with the ball — coughing up 17 first-half turnovers — before settling down and committing eight in the second half.
BMU opened up its biggest lead of the night at 27-20 midway through the third quarter but could never extend the margin beyond seven points.
The Eagles hung around right until the end when Hayley Goodwin hit her second 3-pointer of the night with 15.8 seconds remaining. The Bucks traveled on their next possession, allowing the MVCS sharpshooter one more attempt from deep, which fell short.
Notes: Josh King, an MVCS graduate and former standout athlete, announced the starting lineups. … Sharon Academy athletic director Blake Fabrikant was in attendance to support his school’s student-athletes. … Thursday’s nightcap between the MVCS and BMU boys didn’t happen due to a scheduling snafu.