Burlington girls basketball fall to Lexington in season finale

The Burlington High School girls basketball team fell 45-33 to rival Lexington Friday night at home in the final game of the season. 

Lexington was lead by the trio of Kelsey Fenn, Cat Costello and Kristen Kajko who all finished the game in double digit scoring.  In the first half of the game alone Costello almost reached double digits with nine points.  She staked her team to a 5-0 lead in the fist quarter before Burlington got into the game and the teams traded hoops the rest of the quarter with Lexington taking a 13-8 lead into the second.

Burlington came out very strong early in the second, keyed by senior Jodi Han.  She had a nice assist and then followed that up with an uncontested layup of her own as she outran the Lexington defense and laid it in easily.  Lexington then called a timeout and after that wear focused in defensively allowing just one hoop the rest of the quarter and took a 23-14 lead at the half.

Burlington won the third quarter by playing outstanding defense and getting out in transition.  Captain Kaitlyn Morneweck had a strong quarter rebounding and also got some a few buckets to cut into the lead.  Burlington trailed by only seven, 32-25, going into the final quarter of their season. 

Burlington came out strong and mounted a comeback.  Captain Rachel Joyce hit a jumper and was fouled and hit the free throw for the old fashioned three point play.  Kaila Camilleri then drove to the hoop and got a layup in traffic to cut the Lexington lead to three with five minutes to play.  However, Burlington could not get any closer as Costello and Kajko immediately answered back with jumpers of their own.  In addition to the outside shooting of those two they were worn down inside by Fenn who forced Burlington to foul her and then did damage from the free-throw line. 

Costello finished as the games high scorer with 17 points, followed by Fenn and Kajko who got 11 and 10 respectively.  It was a good win for Lexington, who has now won four straight games and is headed into the tournament on a roll.

For Burlington it was the final basketball game for six seniors.  In a ceremony before the game they honored captains Rachel Joyce, Katherine Trahan, Kayla Coluci and Kaitlyn Morneweck as well as Kaila Camilleri and Jodi Han.  Burlington struggled through much of the season and finished with a disappointing record but the team played extremely hard throughout the entire season and made great strides of improvement from the first game to the last game. 

The positive for this season was the experience gained by some of the underclassmen that will return next season.  The team will bring back forwards Kelsey Carnell and Sarah Hood as well as guards Erin Clark, Katie Han and Stacey Howe who all logged significant minutes this season.