Rutland edges CVU in OT for 1st hoops title in 50 years

Whatever you call it — relic, reminder, burden — the red-and-white letterman’s jacket had seen some years.

And when former Rutland boys basketball coach James Leamy gave it to current coach Mike Wood last summer, Wood didn’t know what to do with it. Leamy suggested adding it to the Raiders’ trophy case, but Wood’s players had a different idea.

“The guys were all with me at camp that particular day, so they said, ‘Coach, we’re taking that with us all season,’” Wood said. “It’s ridden with us everywhere we’ve gone.”

The 1967 championship jacket never left the Rutland locker room until Monday — the night that nearly forever trumped never before.

Wood slid his arms through the old leather sleeves and wore the keepsake to the top of the ladder to cut down the net at Patrick Gym after his second-seeded Raiders survived a 43-37 overtime thriller against No. 1 Champlain Valley to capture the Division I crown and end the school’s wrenching 50-year title drought.

“It is the coolest thing,” Wood said. “We’ve been here, what, seven times in 10 years and you just wonder are the stars ever going to align? Is it ever going to happen?

“This group’s got a lot of sweat equity, they put a lot of time in, a lot of heart, a lot of soul, and to see it translate into something like this is awesome.”

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Matt Lorman put up a game-high 18 points, half coming in the first two quarters to keep the Raiders (22-2) afloat offensively. Kyle Cassarino added nine, going 4-for-4 at the foul line in overtime, while Nathaniel Kingsley had eight points, six rebounds and two blocks to help avenge a 54-51 loss to CVU earlier this season.

The Raiders not only put an end to their own frustrations in the state final — Rutland had lost all five trips since the 1967 crown — but became the first school from the southern half of the state to reign in D-I since rival Mount St. Joseph won in 1999.

They are the only two southern schools to win since 1993.

“There was definitely some weight there,” Lorman said. “It was definitely a little more pressure than we wanted but in the end it feels nice.”

The bitter pill for Champlain Valley: The best season in program history didn’t produce a banner to hang in Hinesburg.

“I’m proud of these guys regardless and I’m really excited for what they accomplished, what we accomplished as a basketball team this year,” said CVU coach Michael Osborne.

“Where we had success in the first game was turning them over, getting in transition, and we never got the pace going,” Osborne said. “Low-scoring game, if you told me it was going to be this score in overtime … probably not in our favor because of their physicality, mostly.”

Josh Bliss led the Redhawks (22-2) with 10 points. His steal and layup after a Rutland defensive rebound knotted the contest 35-35 with 40 seconds to go, the score that sent the game to overtime.

But after more than a century waiting between the two schools — Rutland had its felt-like-forever 50 years, while CVU was playing in its first final ever — what was four more thrilling minutes?

“We were up against it,” Wood said. “Something had to give. We had a two-point lead, we get a rebound, they grab the ball, ball goes in the basket. I’m like, ‘Alright … I mean it’s only fitting a game like this goes to overtime.”

But even early in the fourth quarter it wasn’t obvious it would go that far.

For teams tied 4-4 after one quarter and 24-all after three, the first minute of the final frame amounted to an offensive explosion.

Lorman knocked down a pull-up jumper at the elbow and Noah Tyson stole the ensuing CVU inbound pass before knocking down a 3-pointer in the right corner to make it a 29-24 game.

After CVU answered with a full-court pass from Colin Monsey (eight points) to Walker Storey for a transition layup, the Raiders rattled off four more points, the last three on a layup-and-1 from Tyrell Johnson, to make it a 33-26 game with 5:44 left.

“We knew they were going to give punches, we were going to give punches — we had to take them,” Cassarino said.

The Redhawks rallied back with layups from Matt Spear and Storey, then a deep 3-pointer from Bliss at the top of they key to pull within two, 35-33, with 1:48 to play.

“That fight just kind of sums up — and the togetherness and the composure during timeouts — why we were here in the first place,” Osborne said.

In overtime, a pair of Cassarino foul shots in the opening seconds sparked a 6-0 Rutland run that CVU failed to answer until there were less than 10 seconds to play.

After some late-season defensive head-scratchers, the Raiders found their form when it counted most. They held their first three playoff opponents to 38 points each and they didn’t let the Redhawks get that far in 36 minutes on Monday.

“When you get up here, the ball doesn’t or hasn’t, historically, gone in the basket a lot,” Wood said. “First half against Essex, 10 points. First half against Mount Mansfield, five. Fifteen the other night. Thirteen tonight. We felt like we had a great game plan and I think we really did a nice job executing it.”

That defense-wins-championships thing? It worked to a T for Rutland, which returned all five starters from last year’s semifinal outfit and entered the year as much of a consensus pre-season favorite as any team in recent years.

“We obviously knew the 50 year drought and everything, so we had that in the back of our minds,” Cassarino said. “We wanted to make our own legacy. We’d been here before, we’re senior-laden, and just came out and played with no regrets.”

Contact Austin Danforth at 651-4851 or edanforth@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/eadanforth