Hampshire upends Burlington 45-32

James Goebbert doesn't often grab the spotlight. But it was hard to miss him Friday. The 6-foot-2 senior scored 22 points and grabbed 8 rebounds while leading Hampshire past Burlington Central, 45-32, in a Big Northern East boys basketball game at Hampshire.

Freshman Ray Hunnicutt had 15 points for Burlington.

With Hampshire leading by 5 late, Goebbert went on a personal 9-2 run to make it 43-31 with 1:06 left.

The Whips (12-6, 5-0) won their seventh in a row.

"We were just trying to spread them out at the end," said Goebbert. "They had to come out and get us, but we're pretty fast. We were able to cut and go to the bucket."

Goebbert also had a couple of steals and a couple of assists.

Until then, the Rockets executed their game plan pretty well, slowing down the game and attacking the Whip-Purs from the perimeter. But they couldn't finish.

"I thought we executed the game plan real well, we just didn't finish," said Central coach Chris Payne. "It was 16-11 at halftime, and our charts had us with 5 missed layups in the first half. You've got to make those."

But the Rockets were solid on the defensive end for most of the game.

"Give them a lot of credit," said Hampshire coach Bob Barnett of the Rockets. "They took us out of what we wanted to do. I was trying to think of things to try and do, and some of them worked and some of them were just godawful."

Mike Kozenczak and Shyler Ralphs added 7 points apiece for Hampshire. Ralphs also had 7 board as Hampshire outrebounded the visitors, 26-15.

Shane Larkin scored 6 points, all in the second half, for Burlington.

Hampshire led 7-6 after one quarter and 16-11 at halftime as both teams clamped down on defense. Leading 12-11, the Whips scored the last 4 points before intermission, then opened the second half with an 8-2 run to get some separation.