Centaurs girls basketball break 7-game skid

There was concern about traveling to Bristol Jan. 18 due to an impending snowstorm. But the game was moved up a couple of hours and the Woodstock Academy girls’ basketball team made the near cross-state trek to play at Bristol Central.

Woodstock Academy broke a seven-game losing streak with a 54-40 win over the Rams.

“More than you believe,” Centaurs coach Will Fleeton said when asked how much his team needed a win. “The spirits have been high but this win was needed to keep them high. It was also good to see the girls see a positive result from all their hard work.”

Woodstock Academy raised its record to 2-9 with the win.

It also did something for a first time this season. It broke the 50-point mark.

“We limited the turnovers, got some transition offense and finally made some jump shots,” Fleeton said.

The Centaurs also hit a lot of 3-pointers early.

Kayla Gaudreau hit a trio of 3’s in the first half when she scored 11 of her 17 points.

Gaudreau wasn’t the only one hitting from beyond the arc. Alexa Pechie added two 3-pointers of her own and Katie Papp stepped outside to add another.

The long distance barrage meant Woodstock Academy owned a 30-21 lead at halftime.

Kaitlin Birlin was the second half fuel. The 5-foot, 9-inch junior finished with a game-high 22 points.

Five of those came in the third quarter and she added 11 of the 15 points the Centaurs scored in the fourth quarter.

In addition to five field goals, Birlin made 6-of-9 from the free throw line in the second half.

Earlier in the week, Gaudreau was the player tasked with playing some shut down defense.

The Woodstock Academy senior was in charge of holding Longmeadow guard Ilana Kofman at bay.

Gaudreau held Kofman scoreless in the first half.

Unfortunately, the Lancers proved that Kofman was not the only shooter on the team and finished by making seven of their 11 3-point attempts to hand the Centaurs a 39-23 loss.

Both teams struggled in the first half offensively. Longmeadow failed to hit a field goal and was forced to live off of six made free throws.

It was enough, however, for the Lancers (6-3) to hold the first quarter lead.

Woodstock Academy also had its struggles on the offensive end. Papp, who led the Centaurs with nine points, hit a pair of buckets in the final 30 seconds of the quarter but Woodstock Academy still trailed, 6-5.

The Centaurs offense, before Jan. 18, had not been very productive. That caused the Centaurs to adopt a new philosophy.

Without a dominant post player, Woodstock Academy has been forced to go to a more transition-oriented offense.

But the Centaurs haven't quite perfected it and they committed 17 turnovers in the game with the Lancers.

It's not what Fleeton and the Centaurs are used to.

"We can't play inside-out, which we like to do, without a big presence in the paint. We have to find other areas to get scoring opportunities. I will say, we've always played a transition game but this is different," Fleeton said.

What makes matters even worse, almost as soon as the new system was put in place, guard Peyton Saracina went down with an injury.

Longmeadow opened things up in the second quarter.

The Centaurs followed with four points but Brown put another 3-pointer down at the buzzer for a 17-10 halftime lead.

Woodstock Academy did get as close as three points, 19-16, in the third quarter only to see Longmeadow score the last seven points for a double-digit lead going into the final quarter.

The Centaurs scored the first five points of the fourth, with Birlin getting three of her five points in the game, but the Lancers salted it away with an 8-0 run.

Marc Allard

Director of Sports Information

The Woodstock Academy