Thomaston routs Housatonic in seasonopener

THOMASTON — Opening night for girls basketball in the Berkshire League served up last year’s undefeated league champion, Housatonic, and its longtime predecessor Thomaston — five straight Class S state finals; two state championships — at Thomaston High School.

The Mountaineers graduated four starters. The Golden Bears worked hard on improving last year’s 99 league record.

The result was a 4617

Thomaston rout.

“We’re young and we panicked,” said Housy coach Steve Dodge. “We’re going to have a secondhalf season.”

The Bears showed their defense in an ugly first quarter (75 Thomaston) before finding their shooting range, then announced the start of their scoreboard season in the second quarter while holding Housatonic to a single point.

“We wanted to set the tone defensively,” said Thomaston coach Bob McMahon, whose teams are famous for that tone. “Our two starting seniors — Sydney Stevenson and

Emily Root — led us.”

Root had the first of the team’s eight 3pointers in the first period, opening up Thomaston’s first real lead. Stevenson had a steal and a fastbreak finish to set the completegame tone in the second.

But, if the seniors showed their experience, a pair of underclassmen — junior Emma Kahn and sophomore Sydney Eggleton, gamehigh scorers at 13 points apiece — were prime examples of the Bears’ improvement.

“We’re all together,” said Kahn. “We all believe we can do this.”

“We’ve worked a lot on our defense. We’re very aggressive,” said Eggleton. “And we don’t discriminate between JVs and varsity, upperclassmen and lowerclassmen.”

The mob psychology worked in spades on defense, holding Housy sophomore Sydney Segalla to a teamhigh 11 points, as the lone returning star from last season’s team.

A Mountaineer defense that’s also pretty good, with center Segalla patrolling the lane, shifted the Thomaston offense outside. Kahn and Aurelia Barker hit secondquarter 3s that accounted for half of Thomaston’s points in a period that ended with a 196 Thomaston lead.

Peter Wallace / For Hearst Connecticut Media Thomaston coach Bob McMahon tunes up the Golden Bear defense in a big openingnight win over last season’s Berkshire League champion Housatonic at Thomaston High School on Monday night.