The ConVal girls’ basketball team’s magnificent seven were reduced to a final four at the end of Friday’s NHIAA Division II home playoff game against Lebanon. The small but mighty Cougars were shorthanded the entire season, and after three of them fouled out fighting to the end of the 55-43 Raider victory, ConVal played the final minute with only four players on the court. Even then, the Cougars went down swinging, battling not simply for another playoff game, but to extend their shortened season for another day with each other.
“The biggest thing that we talked about the last couple of days – we just wanted to play for one more day in the gym,” ConVal head coach Kevin Proctor said. “It wasn’t even about getting to Hanover or Bow. We wanted to be in this gym tomorrow together.”
ConVal (1-7) gave the visiting Raiders all they could handle, holding Lebanon to just one field goal, a Catherine Cole three, in the first quarter. But Cole and her teammates would parade to the free throw line over and over again and make up the difference with stellar shooting from the stripe. Cole (13 points) was 6-6 from the line in the quarter and finished 8-8, as did Salley Rainey (14 points). As a team, Lebanon got to the charity stripe 35 times, making 26, while ConVal shot just five free throws the entire game, making four.
“I was proud of their defense,” Proctor said. “I thought they did a good job. We had a game plan, we were able to neutralize it in the first.”
All seven of the Cougars contributed throughout the night; Maddy Faber (nine points) had tough buckets in the first and fourth and was all over the floor for loose balls; Makenna Proctor hit an early three and played smothering defense even after she was saddled with her third foul; Jada Stevens provided a spark off the bench; Mairin Burgess found success in the pick-and-roll; Morgan Bemont (eight points) handled the ball well hit two big threes in the fourth quarter, and the Cougars’ twin seniors Emily and Julia Donovan left it all on the floor as always, scoring eight points apiece in their final game.
Proctor said the Donovans’ senior leadership was crucial this season and seems to have rubbed off on the underclassmen.
“They are the nicest kids,” Proctor said. “I’ve been hard on them over the last couple of years because of the potential that I could see in them and what we needed from them. And I think that leadership, when your senior captains are getting that feedback from the coach, if they handle it with maturity and understand where it’s coming from, then that trickles down to the younger players. That’s a good role model.”
Despite the Raider free throw parade, ConVal kept it close the entire game, but the physical Lebanon defense turned up the pressure in the second half and ended up turning over the young Cougars 28 times. That’s something Proctor expects to shake off by the time next season rolls around, following an offseason full of AAU basketball for his team, bolstered by the return of players lost to COVID protocols and, hopefully, on the heels of a normal preseason.
“If we want to go beyond the prelims or the quarterfinals, we’re going to have to grow up a little bit in that regard,” Proctor said. “Being able to handle physicality as ballhandlers and kind of give it back a little bit, that’s something that offseason is going to really develop and the weight room is going to continue to develop.”