Twin State hoop week
Toolbox
Anna Grearson - Published: July 6, 2009
Call me old-fashioned, but I still really enjoy learning new things.
As for learning things I should probably already know?
After talking with both coaches for this upcoming weekend's Merchants Bank Rotary Twin State Basketball Classic at the University of Vermont between the host Green Mountain state and New Hampshire, the Vermont teams have a lot to be excited about. And apparently there's plenty of history steeped into this years' girls game that I feel a little guilty for not realizing.
Montpelier boys coach Joe Salerno, who will guide the Vermont boys, and BFA-St. Albans girls coach Glenn Johnson, who will lead the Vermont girls. Both clearly eat, sleep and breathe the game and have made impacts on the game here in Vermont. Both played their high school careers out in this state and are at differing stages of giving back to the game they love. Both are looking to win, again, as Vermont swept the classic last summer.
For Johnson, this weekend's game marks the final time he will coach his daughter, Tiffany.
"I've been coaching her since she was nine," he said. "It's a special event for us."
Johnson has been the Comets' varsity coach for the last four years and comes from a coaching family that should be familiar to all high school basketball fans in the state – his brother, Matt, coaches the Burlington boys varsity team.
"We love the game," Glenn Johnson said last week. "It's fun to give back and teach the kids and be involved with the game."
While Glenn Johnson is making his coaching debut at the Twin State classic (he played in the game in 1983 after wrapping up his high school playing career at BFA-St. Albans), he will be the third Johnson male to coach the contest and Tiffany will be the fifth Johnson to play in the game. She is headed to Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., to play for the Division II national runner-up Ravens.
In addition to all that Johnson history, the game's MVP award is named for Glenn's brother, Michael, a state trooper killed in the line of duty six years ago.
So as practice gets under way this week, culminating in the 1 p.m. girls game and 3 p.m. boys game Saturday at Patrick Gymnasium, more than basketball will be on some minds.
For Salerno, who played at both Spaulding and Montpelier in the late 1990s and early 2000s, basketball is a year-'round commitment with stints with the Lone Wolf Athletics National Travel Team (an AAU squad with some of the state's top junior boys), an overseas opportunity last summer in Holland and some national basketball camps around the northeast.
"I'm thrilled that it's at Patrick," he said. "For me to coach at the Aud. and at Patrick within a few months, I'm really excited."
But both coaches were quick to point out that the game is all about the kids.
The girls team features a few familiar faces for local fans in Spaulding's Marissa Velez, who was named the 2009 Times Argus girls basketball player of the year after leading the Tide to their first-ever girls basketball championship, Lamoille's Rachel Wellman and Burlington's Ally Dowen, who started her high school career at U-32.
The last time Velez and the Johnsons met on a basketball court for a high school contest was the aforementioned 2009 Division I title game, and that court was where they'll be reunited this weekend. Tiffany Johnson and Velez have played AAU together, and Glenn Johnson has known Wellman for the last five or six years.
In addition to those three, the girls team also includes Nicole Lawton (BFA-St. Albans), Kelsey Beynnon (South Burlington), Danyelle Shufelt (Lyndon), Diantha Driscoll (St. Johnsbury), Donna Lawson (Lake Region), Tarryn Bolognani (Twin Valley), Becca Sklepowicz (Mount Anthony), Maria Gleason (Enosburg) and Rene Denison (Essex).
Beynnon will join the team later in the week as she is busy at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she will play for the Red Foxes under head coach Brian Giorgis.
"There's a lot to be excited about," Glenn Johnson said. "There are a lot of kids I don't get to see that I've heard a lot about. We've got a pretty good group. We'll let them see the girls they've been playing against."
And what about that other group, the New Hampshire girls?
"I don't know a lot about them individually," Glenn Johnson said, "but they're skilled. They only have a few scholarship kids whereas we're bringing five and a bunch of others who are still going to play basketball. They have more numbers to choose from and tend to have more size."
As for the boys, Salerno is pretty eager to work with his group of athletes, too.
"From a team standpoint, compared to New Hampshire, we're definitely bigger, which is something a little different," he said. "With Clancy (Rugg, from Burlington) and Nick Meunier (Rice), Peter Francis (Bellows Falls) and Jason Grey (Thetford) up front, we have a pretty strong frontcourt that we'll look to take advantage of. The core of guys from Burlington, Rugg, (James) Hale, (Shane) Norris and the Rice kids (Meunier and Jon Goldberg, who won the Division I boys title over rival Burlington, also at Patrick gym) should create a nice buzz up there.
"I am really excited about Grant White (Springfield)," Salerno said. "I still think he's a guy who not everybody knows about. He's a guy who can fill it up, and we'll look for him to do some really nice things."
Also playing in the boys game are Curtis Robinson (Proctor), John Donnelly (CVU), Logan White (Hartford), Mark Comstock and Cedric White (Rutland) and Chris Gaboriault (Montpelier).
They all have college basketball in their near futures, too.
Hale is headed to UVM, Rugg will play prep ball at Northfield Mount Hermon, Grant White will also play prep ball at Kimball Union Academy, Goldberg and Meunier are both headed to St. Lawrence, Norris to Keene State, Francis to Westfield State, Comstock to Castleton State to play both football and basketball, Logan White to Castleton, Robinson to Rivier, Cedric White to RPI, Donnelly to Vasseur, Gray to Lyndon State and Gaboriault is looking to walk on at Johnson State.
"These are all great players," Salerno said. "We'll just give them a chance to create, which playing in transition will allow them to do.
"It's a competitive game, but we're there to win. I'm going to have a lot of fun, and I think this is one of the more talented classes Vermont has had since (Spaulding's Mike) Perez and (David) Ball (in 2002). It's a great opportunity to have a complete roster of college-caliber players. We're just going to try and get another win for Vermont. For me as a younger guy, it's an honor to coach in it."
In addition to this weekend's big basketball festivities in Burlington, there is a full slate of area baseball games and racing at Thunder Road this week.
The Vermont Mountaineers are on the road today in a make-up of a rain out at Manchester (Conn.). They will host North Adams on Tuesday, play at Lowell on Thursday, host Manchester on Friday and play at Keene on Saturday.
The Montpelier Post 3 Legion baseball team will play at Burlington Tuesday night, host Addison County on Thursday, host SD Ireland on Saturday and play at the OE Kings on Sunday.
The Barre Senior Babe Ruth team will host Georgia tomorrow night at Spaulding, Essex Thursday night at Spaulding and play a doubleheader at Colchester on Saturday.
Last week, Barre was still undefeated at 7-0 with an 11-6 win over Lyndon on Tuesday. In that game, Thomas McLeod, Reuben Stone and Corey Johnson combined for an eight-hitter. Stone had two hits, Logan Farrell had two hits including a home run, and Brandon Rollins, Tyler Carrier and Scott Bigelow all had hits for Barre.
Jesse Danielson took the loss for Lyndon with teammates Eric Burnham (three hits, including a home run) and Joe Riendeau (two hits) leading the way at the plate.
On Thursday night, Thunder Road hosts Charter Communications night at 6:30 p.m. and on Saturday the local running community has the Bear Swamp Run, a 5.7 mile race in Middlesex starting at 9 a.m., to look forward to.
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