Winning not the only thing for Cornwall team

CORNWALL — What fun it was, to have soaring bleachers filled with cheering fans. For the Cornwall Consolidated School girls basketball team, and their coaches, that was the perfect end to a great season, even if the team lost in a close contest to Salisbury in the championship game last Thursday.

“We have so much fun during the season. We worked hard, we learned a lot, but sometimes our practices were spent partly lying on the floor and talking,� said Coach Patty Rovezzi. “We just had fun together.�

Rovezzi, who is also the school secretary, has been coaching for the past few years with her sister, Bonnie Burdick, a teacher at Cornwall Consolidated.

Goofing off in practice occasionally obviously did not hurt their game.

They came into the Region One championship team well-matched against Salisbury Central School. Each team had lost only one game, falling to the other on that team’s home court, and by almost the same point spread.

Rovezzi does not like to lay blame on illness, but it was a factor last week. Three girls had spent some time in the nurse’s office earlier that day. The nausea felt by more than one girl during the game was not caused by nerves.

But they played well, once they got past a few minutes’ worth of jitters, Rovezzi said.

“It just wasn’t their day to win. But it was so wonderful to see our kids and kids from other schools come out to cheer the teams on.�

She also credited great coaching skills by Salisbury’s Anthony O’Niel, for whom she said she has great respect.

“We have a fast team, and we play a fast game. Anthony knew enough to slow down the pace, and take away our best strength.

“We are so proud of them,� she said of her athletes. “They are not only great players who make up a great team, they are a nice bunch of girls.�

They will lose five players to graduation this year. Thinking about next year, Rovezzi said they may have to tap the sixth grade, and even the fifth grade for a full team, but she bets either way it will be fun.

She related a story that sums up why she and Burdick coach:

They were invited to be special guests at the last practice of a group of second-, third- and fourth-graders coached by Jayne and Gordon Ridgway and K.C. Baird. That happened to be the day after the championship game.

They went, a little apprehensively, still exhausted from the tournament the day before.

“As we walked toward the gym, we could hear someone say, ‘Here they come.’ They came running up to us and 17 little girls hugged us until we nearly fell down. They scrimmaged for us and we felt like celebrities. Every time one of them made a basket, they looked over to see if we were watching.

“They are so excited and can’t wait to be on our team. I looked at Bonnie and said I don’t know how many more years we can do this, especially after the day before, but we knew that this was exactly why we do it.�