The Hoosac Valley girls’ basketball team had another strong showing season as the Hurricanes earned their second-consecutive state title after they were named a Division-III co-champion.
After winning seven out of their last eight Western Massachusetts titles, coach Ron Wojcik acknowledged the impact winning last year’s state title had on the program.
“Certainly the first one last year was huge," Wojcik said. “I mean between the school and the community and the team, players, and alumni, it meant a lot to everyone. I’m not going to say this one doesn’t because the kids had a great year and really came together. I thought we were playing really well, especially defensively late in the season.
“To finish it off with a championship certainly was nice and I think it helps having won last year outright because if this was your first one winning it this way, that would actually seem pretty weird too. So winning last year kind of helped.”
Understanding the difficulties Hoosac Valley faced at times in the state finals, winning back-to-back state titles was something that Sarah Field also felt was a big accomplishment for the community as a whole.
“I think it meant a lot just because a bunch of times we’ve gone in the past to the state finals and we’ve lost by like 30 every time," Field said. “I just think that this time and winning again was bittersweet. It was really good for our community to just be state champs again.”
Reaction to co-championship:
Hoosac Valley was preparing as usual for the championship game until the team found out about the news in the middle of practice two days before they were scheduled to play St.Mary’s (Lynn) in the Division-III state finals.
“We had actually a really good hard practice on Thursday," Wojcik said. “Brought in some college kids, some alumni to go against us and usually that’s our hard day, a couple days before game day. It really went well. We had a really good practice, kids went for a couple of hours and right near the end of it one of the parents came in and said, because none of us didn’t see anything during practice posted or anything else, and they mentioned that it was over. That they had cancelled the games and made teams co-champs.”
Knowing what her team accomplished over her career, Shaleigh Levesque felt grateful for the experiences she shared with her teammates in the postseason. Levesque had bittersweet emotions understanding she wouldn’t get another opportunity to compete as a member of Hoosac Valley.
“I think looking at it now it’s not that disappointing," Levesque said. "The state tournament and Western Mass. has given us so many memories and life lessons that we’ll take for us forever. So we’re not that upset but just knowing we’ll never get the closure to have our final game and have our standing ovation in of our last seconds on the court. That’s just kind of sad.”
Although his team — especially the seniors — were disappointed, Wojcik told the girls to be grateful for being named co-champions and playing in the state tournament pointing out how some high-school athletes in Connecticut were unable to even participate in their state tournament.
“I said to the girls—Yup, we would all rather play, but you know what you got to at least do this much. You’re a state champ whether people want to look at it that way or not. I think I tried to use it as a teaching point for them, but they were all disappointed. They all wanted to play, and you wouldn’t be working that hard two days before if you didn’t want to go after it,” Wojcik said.
Turning point of season:
With Hoosac Valley stringing together multiple memorable games throughout the season, Wojcik thought their performance against Minnechaug was one of the major turning points in the season as he believed they put together one of their best all-around performances at home in a 62-47 victory.
Although the Hurricanes took some tough losses later in the season, Wojick still found a silver lining in some of those losses that gave him the indication that his team was trending in the right direction.
“I think the second time we played Taconic, we played very poorly and lost pretty good to them," Wojcik said.
“Then coming back the final time against Taconic, the last week before we went to Foxborough and taking them to overtime, I think that once again you get beat by a team very badly you come back in their place again and have them, take them to overtime, and had a chance to win the game but didn’t. At that point, you know you’re playing better.”
Most Memorable Game of Season:
After falling to Millbury 45-28 at the Hoopball Classic in January, Wojcik said he believes the second meeting between the two teams in the state semi-finals was one of the most memorable games of the year. Hoosac Valley learned from its struggles earlier in the year, and Wojcik was proud to see the resiliency his team showed.
“We played really poorly at the Hoopball against Millbury early in the season, early in January," Wojcik said. "I think we lost by 15 or 16 in that game. Then coming back to beat them in the state semifinal, I think that’s a huge accomplishment for our kids and says a lot about their character and how they were able to grow during the season, get better.”
Season Takeaways:
After another successful season, Wojcik noticed the cohesiveness his team displayed this season which he believed was something that stood out from other teams he’s coached in the past.
“They were definitely all together in one unit. When I say that, it was on and off the court. They really did love one another and we’re really close to each other,” he said.
“I’ve been doing this for 28 years now and there’s not many teams you can say that don’t have some sort of tiff or somebody doesn’t get along, some sort of drama during the season. We emphasize how much we don’t want any of that. I’m sure everybody does, but there really wasn’t. There really wasn’t with this group. They really got along well, and I think when kids have each other’s backs and get along that well on and off the court what happens is you can really function well as a unit on the court.”
Riley Robinson said she also felt that the team she was a part of this season was special, noting the effort the team put into their defensive play this winter.
“I think we also had a lot of success saying with the fact that Lexi (Mercier) and Alie (Mendel) who were 2,000- point scorers, so we had the offense but this year everyone kind of like doubted us because we lost a major part of our offense. But it’s kind of right what they say when defense wins championships,” said Robinson.
“That’s what got us to the championship. Our defense. We didn’t need to score a crazy amount of points to win in a game. We just needed to hold our opponent to a fewer amount of points. I think that’s why this championship feels better than the rest because we just know we had to work hard on defense and that’s what got us to this point.”
Seniors:
Sarah Field, Riley Robinson, Shaleigh Levesque, Faith Hall
Wojcik said experience in big games helped prepare them for the challenges they faced in the Western Mass. and state tournaments. With a combined record of 14-0 at the Cage throughout their careers, Wojcik thinks having that kind of leadership gave his team an advantage.
“So really with the seniors it was like, because of them being in the program for four years, it was kind of like having three other coaches on the court. We have a big coaching staff, so we see a lot of things and talk to the kids about a lot of things, but I think the more that you have the better off you are. I think the seniors did a great job with that,” said Wojcik.
Wojcik believes a lead by example leadership style implemented by the seniors helped instill the best in their younger teammates.
“Everybody’s different and I always tell the kids actions speak louder than words," Wojcik said.
"Show me don’t tell me. Show me. When kids are diving for loose balls or taking charges or playing lockdown D on somebody, other kids see that stuff. You don’t necessarily have to talk. They just see it. I think a lot of that goes a long way.”
Having played with Field and Levesque from 8th grade to AAU to high school basketball, Robinson was proud to see the growth her teammates displayed this season adjusting to different roles and expressed what her experience at Hoosac Valley meant to her.
“I’m definitely going to miss them," she said. "It’s sad. It’s out to the whole team. I’m going to miss the coaching staff. They’ve been great over the past four years. My team stepped up tremendously this year. We faced so much adversity over the last season that I’m proud of the girls and especially proud of Sarah and Shaleigh because we had to take on a different role than we had last year. We had to adjust to different spots. We had to score more and do everything just a little bit more than last year.
Last year was already challenging enough, so I’m just extremely proud that we could get to the point where 2020 was going to be on the school banner now and we can say that was our year to do that. I’m going to miss them.”
