Championship Weekend And UVM Basketball!

By Jack Healey
The Poultney-Woodstock game was closer than I expected and Mt. Mansfield was better than I expected. I give the Cougars credit and they deserved to win, but it was probably Rutland’s worst game of the year.
I expected Burr and Burton to win in Division 2, but I expected the game to be a little closer.
I can understand Fair Haven fans being upset with the final score which was Burr and Burton 63 Fair Haven 14, but Fair Haven did beat Spaulding 77-0 in a quarterfinal game.I didn’t see either game, but I’m just pointing out that sometimes you are doing the routing and sometimes you are the one being routed. I went 2-1 on championship day and ended my season with a record of 105-37.
Rick Goeke and Brian Hill of WSYB Radio in Rutland deserve a lot of credit for being out in the elements all day as they were there to broadcast all three games. It’s ridiculous that the hometown station gets stuck in the stands and guys from other parts of the state get to be in the press box.
I know the VPA looks at the venue as technically a neutral site, but I think it’s only fair the hometown broadcasters get to be inside. I know we are in the age of social media where everybody is an expert on everything, but play by play isn’t that easy even in the best of circumstances, let alone when you have to struggle with the elements and people in the stands getting in your way for about eight hours!
Extra kudos to Rick and Brian for noticing that Rutland got five downs in a series late in the D1 championship game. A good thing that it didn’t end up changing the game as was the case in the Colorado-Missouri game in 1990. It allowed Colorado to score the winning touchdown on the game’s final play. Colorado shared the national championship with Georgia Tech that year. Cornell defeated Dartmouth in a game played in 1940 7-3 and Cornell won the game because they were given a 5th down. Cornell later did acknowledge the mistake and forfeited the game to Dartmouth.
The University of Vermont mens basketball team will be at #1 Kansas tonight. MSJ grad and Rutland native Larry Hare is the equipment manager at Kansas. In a strange quirk in the schedule UVM will host Lyndon in its next game on Wednesday night.