March is known for madness and that’s exactly what happened at the Division I high school girls basketball semifinals at Patrick Gym on Monday, March 2. The first game of the doubleheader was an absolute thriller with No. 3 St. Johnsbury and No. 2 Rutland trading blows which ended with Lola Sparks hitting the overtime, game-winning buzzer-beating layup sending Rutland to the Division I championship game with a 64-63 win.
No. 1 Mount Mansfield punched its ticket to the Division I championship game joining Rutland. The Cougars used a “survive and advance” mentality in a low scoring contest pulling out a 35-25 win with a strong second half.
The championship game is scheduled at Patrick Gym on Friday, March 6. Here’s a closer look inside the two Division I semifinal contests.
Lola Sparks sends Rutland to first championship game in 16 years
After St. Johnsbury missed at the foul line, Rutland got the ball back with 10.8 seconds trailing by one. Leading scorer Brinley Gandin took the ball up the floor before passing to Ellie Whalen.
Whalen made a cross-court pass to Sparks in the corner and cut towards the basket with time quickly winding down. Sparks hoped to get fouled, but instead she launched a layup through a pair of defenders that fell in as the buzzer sounded.
“It’s just really exciting, we definitely worked really hard, but I feel like it was our energy that really helped us,” Sparks said.
Rutland ran to celebrate, mobbing Sparks on the court, capping off a thrilling contest that saw Rutland come back from a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter with an 11-0 run. Rutland hasn’t been to the championship since 2010 and is looking for its first title since 2005.
“I kind of saw it my head,” Rutland coach Jake Eaton said. “I could see the angle and as long as she caught it I knew there was a chance.”
St. Johnsbury coach Jade Huntington said “the last 11 seconds felt like a minute.”
“They earned those two. They had to work for it, but it felt like an eternity, like the clock wasn’t moving fast enough, because we had such a good chance to get a hold of that ball a couple of times and just couldn’t,” Huntington said. “And we had so many fabulous defensive stops down the stretch. It just seemed like it was naturally going to happen — we were going to get it. I actually still believed we were going to get that stop. I honestly did.”
Besides Sparks’ 13-point performance, Rutland’s star guard Gandin shined scoring the fourth-most points at a Patrick Gym hosted semifinal game with 26 points. Gandin battled through some physical plays and hard fouls to put up that total.
Gandin and Whalen combined for 9 of Rutland’s 10 made 3-pointers, with Gandin hitting a then go-ahead triple with 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter. Whalen finished with a 13-point, 12-rebound double-double.
St. Johnsbury had a chance late in regulation to build its lead, but missed four consecutive free throws and one of the Hilltoppers top shooters Amelia Rossiter fouled out late in regulation. The Hilltoppers shot 6-of-17 from the free-throw line.
Monday’s contest was just the second time both teams scored 60 points in a Vermont girls basketball semifinal. The first happened in 1988.
This game featured a rare display of offense for a Vermont girls basketball semifinal contest. This is only the second time that both teams scored over 60 points with the first time coming in 1988 (a 75-63 win for Brattleboro over Spaulding).
St. Johnsbury kept pace with the deep ball, making 11 3-pointers with freshman Rossiter making 5 for 15 points. Brianna Bunnell led the Hilltoppers with 17 points and Anna Ebert added 15 points.
The game featured 18 lead changes.
“I thought this would be a 45-40 type game,” Eaton said. “It was the total opposite, so what do I know about basketball? Both teams shot the lights out and played really well.”
Mount Mansfield survives North Country’s upset bid
The offense from the first game did not carry over into the second matchup. No. 1 Mount Mansfield trailed No. 4 North Country at halftime before grinding out a strong second half to advance to the championship game with a 35-25 win.
“It’s that old adage of tournaments of just survive and advance and that’s what we just told the kids,” Cougars coach Mark Pfaff said.
Junior Genevieve Wasser helped break the Cougars out of their rut. Wasser scored three straight layups to start the third quarter helping flip a 15-12 halftime deficit into an 18-15 lead. The junior added another basket late in the third quarter as Mount Mansfield outscored North Country 25-10 in the second half.
“In a tight game like that any points you get fuels everyone since we know we can get there,” Wasser said.
Besides Wasser sparking the offense, Mount Mansfield rebounded the ball better, racking up 20 boards in the second half compared to North Country’s 8. The Cougars broke open the game late going on a 9-0 run to gain some separation with Maysa Long and Aly Dorman accounting for all those points. Long led the Cougars with 10 points and 9 rebounds while Greta Nolan led the Falcons with 10 points.
Contact Judith Altneu at JAltneu@usatodayco.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @Judith_Altneu.
