QUECHEE — Hayley Goodwin had every right to be frustrated.
Through her first two games this season with the Mid Vermont Christian School girls basketball team, the senior guard had scored 33 and 36 points, respectively. Her teammates in those games scored 20 — combined.
So when the Eagles took the court for their home opener Monday against Hartford, the Hurricanes knew full well that MVCS would run its offense through Goodwin. And even though they never resorted to double-teaming her, they used help defense effectively and forced Goodwin into tough shot after tough shot. It didn’t take long for the Eagles’ star to look visibly rattled.
“They were playing tighter defense on me, but also I couldn’t shoot,” Goodwin said. “I wasn’t making layups. I feel like I could have had at least 10 more points.”
Goodwin still scored 21 points that evening, with 14 of them coming in the fourth quarter. But once again, the rest of the team wasn’t able to help her out, and MVCS fell 43-28, dropping to 1-2 for the season.
Through three games, Goodwin is responsible for nearly 77% of the Eagles’ offensive production. Coach Chris Goodwin — Hayley’s father — said opponents will be keying on his daughter on a nightly basis, and if they can limit her scoring prowess, MVCS will struggle to win games.
“Teams are going to know that if they key on Haley, unless we get better, we’re going to have a hard time scoring,” he said. “We can get open looks off of the help that comes to her, but they we have to knock down those shots.
“That’s easier said than done. We get her teammates an open 10- or 15-footer, we have to make 50% of those, not 10%.”
Chris Goodwin said most of the team did not play basketball before high school, while Hayley has been playing as long as she can remember. Her older sister, Sydney, graduated last year, and they shared the spotlight on the court for four years — both of them began playing on the varsity team as eighth graders.
The Goodwin sisters have carried the Eagles to several deep playoff runs. In 2018, MVCS went 18-3 but lost in the first round of the VPA Division IV playoffs to Blue Mountain. The following year, the Eagles finished 15-6, falling in the quarterfinals to Mount St. Joseph. They were slated to play for their first-ever state championship in 2020, but the game was canceled when the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Last year, MVCS went 9-3 in a pandemic-shortened season, reaching the semifinals before losing to Proctor.
Goodwin entered her final season with 1,402 career points, and getting to 2,000 is still a possibility. But after playing just two games in December, the Eagles have three just this week. And they were originally scheduled for four — including three on consecutive days — before their game Tuesday against Arlington was postponed because Arlington did not have enough available players.
For Goodwin, who only comes out of a game if it is a complete blowout one way or the other, that will mean a lot of basketball. Even Monday, she was clearly tiring toward the end of the game, clutching her hips and ankles at times, and she also got knocked to the ground after drawing a hard foul in the fourth quarter.
Hartford coach Heidi Bushway said she thought her team’s game plan against Goodwin was effective, even though the Hurricanes didn’t quite meet her goal of holding Goodwin to under 20 points.
“I didn’t see any games on her, but it’s a small town and some of the kids have played with her through AAU,” Bushway said. “She did seem frustrated. I thought my girls played good defense on her. But she takes it to the basket and makes her foul shots. She’s a really good player.”
Goodwin is averaging 30 points per game so far this season, and her highest-scoring teammate, senior guard Rachel Horner-Richardson, is averaging 3.7. MVCS was down a starter Monday in junior guard Skye Whitcomb, making a team already thin on depth even thinner.
Perhaps one play illustrated Goodwin’s frustration more than any other — in the third quarter, she picked up a loose ball after a scramble near the basket, with plenty of time to set her feet and shoot. But instead, Goodwin hurriedly tried underhanding the ball into the net, without success. It was just that kind of night.
“(Hayley’s teammates) feel the pressure to relieve her and give her a break,” Chris Goodwin said. “A lot of the kids on our team, they’re learning the game still. We have to get to that point where the rest of our team has to recognize that there’s another option off of the first pass in to Haley. That’s going to be how we win and lose games this year.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.