The UVM mens' basketball team held off a strong effort from Marist in Poughkeepsie, New York last night, winning 76-72 on the strength of 62% shooting from the floor in the second half, led by an 18 point effort from Payton Henson, who also had eight rebounds on the night.
The win completes a three game road trip for UVM to open the season and they come home at 2-1. Khallid Hart posted a game-high 21 points for the Red Foxes in the loss.
In other mens' college hoops action the St. Michael's Purple Knights are still searching for their first win of the season after falling to Franklin Pierce 90-76 in Colchester last night. Matt Bonds led the Purple Knights with 26 points in the losing effort while Donte Gittens had a game-high 27 for the Ravens. St. Mike's is 0-3 to start the season.
A better result for the women of St. Mikes, who beat their Franklin Pierce counterparts 69-53 with a strong second half led by Leah Spencer's game high 17 points. The Purple Knights turned on the offense in the second half, shooting 63% from the floor to pick up the team's first win of the year against two losses.
In womens' college hockey the Norwich Cadets went to Plattsburgh undefeated at 4-0 to start the season, but the Cardinals have long been a thorn in the collective side of the Norwich squad, and were again last night, coming away with a 3-1 victory. No shame there, as Plattsburgh State are the defending NCAA champs, and they got a goal and an assist each from star forwards Melissa Sheeran and Kayla Meneghin last night. Freshman Amanda Conway scored for the Cadets, who also got a brilliant effort in goal from netminder Celeste Robert, who made 40 saves in the losing effort.
The UVM mens' soccer team gets the spotlight this evening, hosting round one of the NCAA tournament against Rider University. Game time is 7pm at Virtue Field in Burlington. The Catamounts got to the big dance with an at-large bid after losing to Albany in the semi-finals of the America East playoffs.
To the NBA, and Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens would like to see a more balanced scoring attack from his team instead of relying on Isaiah Thomas to keep bearing the load, but when the points aren't coming from anywhere else, he'll gladly turn to his all-star guard for the big buckets to win a game. That was the case in Boston last night as Thomas did went full Larry Bird in the fourth quarter, scoring 22 of his 30 points on the night in the final frame to lead Boston to a 90-83 win over the Dallas Mavericks. To be fair, Avery Bradley also had a good night for the C's, scoring 18 points and adding 13 rebounds, but it was Thomas down the stretch who really saved Boston's bacon, with Dallas making a late surge, Thomas scored 20 of the team's final 24 points to put the game away.
His only post-season start this year did not go the way Rick Porcello wanted it to when he gave up five runs in a game one loss to the eventual American pennant winning Cleveland Indians, but without the great regular season Porcello had for Boston, the Red Sox probably wouldn't have been in the playoffs in the first place, and yesterday the Baseball writers of America gave Porcello enough first place points to earn him the American League's Cy Young Award. Porcello edged out his former teammate Justin Verlander for the honor (much to the dismay of Kate Upton), who finished second in the voting, (Verlander, that is, not Upton) and Cleveland ace Corey Kluber, who came in third. It's the first Cy Young award for Porcello in his career. He went 22-4 for the Red Sox in 2016 with a 3.15 ERA. Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals won the National League Cy Young.
