Peoples Academy too Much for Lady Trojans in Opener
by Ken Brown
MARSHFIELD – The Twinfield-Cabot girls’ basketball team felt the brunt of Division III powerhouse Peoples Academy (PA) last week in their season opener.
Shelby Wells scored a game-high 15 points to lead the Lady Wolves to a 52-31 road win over Twinfield-Cabot last Friday in both teams’ season opener. Sophie Beck (nine points) and Josie Simone (eight) rounded out a balanced scoring attack for PA. Twinfield-Cabot athletic director David Conover was making his coaching debut for the Lady Trojans and was both impressed with the size and athleticism of PA’s program, but also the fight his team gave for 32 minutes.
“They are an extremely well coached team with phenomenal athletes and every time we switched up a defense to try to disrupt them, they were quick to adjust. The scoreboard wasn’t indicative of how hard our girls competed from start to finish, battling for every loose ball, and I’m so proud of their effort against a very good basketball team. Carly Mancini played almost every minute, giving maximum effort, and she did a great job defending their best offensive player the entire game. Aleacya Moshinskie has been away from the sport due to injury for the past couple of years, but she came off the bench and gave us a really nice spark on both ends,” said Conover.
Kendall Fowler led the Lady Trojan offense last season and picked right up where she left off with a team-high nine points in the loss. PA improved to 1-0 and Vermont Dream Dozen selection Wells and her team look poised to improve upon last season’s 14-7 record that took them to the Division III quarterfinals. Conover is taking over a program that won two games last season and realizes the challenges of playing in the Division III-rich Mountain League. His hopes are to focus more on the scoreboard as the season progresses, but his short term focus remains on building confidence and instilling a sense of pride and a standard of work ethic that the program can build upon.
“It was a lot of fun to be back on the sidelines and our expectation right now in this young season is to give maximum effort. The girls did that tonight against a very good team and I’m proud and they should be proud of that. I think in the past they’ve put their heads down when things haven’t been going well on the court, but I didn’t see that tonight and we are going to continue to focus on effort, growth, and continuing to get better as a team,” said Conover.
Twinfield-Cabot will travel to Hartford on Wednesday and will welcome Richford to Town on Saturday afternoon.
