Ken’s Quiz: When BHS Girls Basketball Dominated

written by KEN HAMWEY, Bulletin Sports Editor
 
Except for tournament play, the basketball season will soon be in our rear-view mirror. The Bellingham High girls, unfortunately, have not qualified for the playoffs during the last two seasons, but their day will come — much as it did in 2013-15, when the Blackhawks twice won the Central Mass. Sectional Tournament and advanced to the state playoffs, where they were eliminated in the semifinals twice.
 
Those teams arrived as Tri Valley League powerhouses after BHS struggled mightily. During a four-year span, which ended in 2010, the Blackhawk girls suffered through a losing streak that reached 48 games. Hard work, improvement and commitment sparked a turn-around, and within a few years BHS gained respect in its league and became a tourney qualifier.
 
This quiz is geared toward the 2013-14 and the 2014-15 teams that put Bellingham on the map as a force in girls basketball. Trips to the sectional and state tourneys sent fans to Worcester and Springfield, where they watched their favorite team battle on the campus at Worcester Polytech and at the MassMutual Center in Springfield.
 
These 10 questions focus on an era in girls basketball at BHS that was bright and promising. Try your luck as you go down memory lane with two of the most successful girls hoop teams in school history.
 

1. The 2013-14 and the 2014-15 teams lost in the state semifinals to the same team from western Massachusetts. Name the team.
2. Name the two head coaches who guided BHS to the state playoffs.
3. List the Blackhawks’ two leading scorers in the 2015 state semifinal game.
4. The western Mass. team that defeated Bellingham twice in the state semifinals hailed from what town?
5. Who was Bellingham’s leading scorer in the 2014 state semifinal game?
6. The 2013-14 team finished with the best record ever for a BHS girls basketball team. What was its record?
7. The 2014-15 team finished its regular season with a mediocre record. What was it?
8. The 2014-15 team had to win its last regular-season game to qualify for the tourney. Whom did it beat?
9. Most of the BHS players who battled in the playoffs during the 2014 run also competed in the sectional tourney in 2013, which was the Blackhawks’ first post-season appearance in years. BHS lost in the first round. Who beat them?
10. Both the 2014 and 2015 BHS teams won their sectional crowns over the same team at WPI. Which squad was it

ANSWERS

1. Hoosac Valley.
2. Dan Nagle (2014) and Stacy Bilodeau (2015).
3. Kristen Swain and Danielle Arcidiacono each had 16 points.
4. Cheshire.
5. Sabrina Ulsh had 24 points.
6. 20-4.
7. 10-10.
8. Medway.
9. Old Rochester.
10. Tyngsboro.