'Nothing to lose': Inspired Burlington girls basketball halts five-decade title drought

Nearly 50 years ago, Wanda Hines powered the Burlington High School girls basketball team to the second of back-to-back state championships.

Burlington hadn't been back to the final until Saturday. And in the crowd, Hines could been seen a few feet behind the BHS bench among the supporters, young and old, who cheered as the No. 3 Seahorses vanquished a 49-year drought between titles with a scintillating, wire-to-wire 55-33 victory over top-seeded St. Johnsbury at Patrick Gym.

But Hines did more than just clap and yell for her Seahorses. She also gave a pre-game speech to the Burlington team prior to tip-off.

"She came in and talked to us before the game, fired us up and told us: 'We got this, we have nothing to lose,'" Burlington star guard Bree McDonald said.

The words proved motivational, and Hines had the resume to impress this year's Seahorses. Hines was the leading scorer in both Burlington title games in 1975 and 1976, the program's lone crowns before Saturday's victory.

"She was the MVP, she was the high scorer. I was like, 'If she could be MVP, at least two of on our team can be MVP and we can win this," said Hawa Mubarak in a reference to McDonald and Nylah Mitchell, who both produced 20-point performances.

Said Burlington coach Bev Robertson: "It was a wonderful thing. I was so proud we could win it with (Hines) in the stands."

Robertson, who moved to Burlington three years after Burlington's 1976 championship run, said he didn't realize the program dry spell had stretched to 49 years until recently.

"It made us feel like, we need to win this now. We are here," Robertson said. "There’s no sense of just getting here. We needed to win and the girls played excellent."

Robertson, who's son B.J. Robertson led the BHS boys to the Division I crown last week, took the reins of the Seahorses girls squad at the start of the 2022-23 season, and had full belief they could reach a championship level.

"Since Day 1," Robertson said. "It was just me trying to get them to understand what they needed to do and how they needed to play as a team," Robertson said. "They relied on everything I taught them and everything I was giving them and they were just so patient with everything."

Burlington head coach Beverlis Robertson receives the game ball from the VPA's Lauren Thomas after his Seahorses defeated St.Johnsbury in the D1 State Championship game Saturday afternoon at UVM's Patrick Gym.

The team had its share of growing pains, though. BHS lost in the first round of the playoffs as the higher seed in Robertson's first season. They narrowly fell to St. Johnsbury in last year's Final Four. And St. Johnsbury crushed by them by double digits in both regular-season matchups this winter.

"Our team chemistry wasn’t good," Mubarak said. "This year, it really changed. Our team got together on and off the court and our chemistry got better. I think that really changed a lot."

Saturday, Burlington ran through McDonald. Instead of their fastbreak style, the Seahorses slowed it down, and McDonald dictated the tempo.

"We got beat up the first three years, but that just made us stronger and made us better I would say," McDonald said. "The fourth time, we had to go out with a banger."

McDonald wants to make sure BHS doesn't have to wait another five decades for the next championship.

"It (feels) great, just to bring it back home. We are going to have a new banner in the new school," McDonald said. "And that’s going to drive our upcoming Burlingtonions to be great also and know they can do (this) too."

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter: @aabrami5.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont H.S. girls basketball championship: BHS halts 49-year drought

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