'An awesome ride' for Bacon Academy

Colchester — It really wasn't about to end any other way, not with the Bacon Academy seniors having amassed an 84-10 record in their four years. Not even with Avon and its 16-2 record visiting on senior night.

The Bobcats, noting that Avon already had a win over Norwich Free Academy this season, nonetheless completed a perfect regular season Tuesday night, with a mundane — but oh, so sweet — 64-46 victory.

Twenty wins, zero losses.

"What an awesome ride," senior Katie Mahoney said. "It's a great accomplishment. I've never been part of a team that ever did something like this. You've got to celebrate a little."

Mahoney and fellow seniors Kelly Dixon, Sarah Straker and Sam Byrne have done plenty of celebrating in their four years: three straight Eastern Connecticut Conference Medium Division titles, an undefeated regular season, 85 wins (and counting) and the 2009 Class M state championship.

Mahoney led the Bobcats with 28 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Dixon scored 13 in a game Bacon led by nine after one quarter and 19 at halftime.

"You never know what's going to happen in the state tournament, so when the kids accomplish something like this, it's very meaningful," Bacon coach Dave Shea said. "You take what you can get."

Shea provided the night's lone piece of drama, issued a technical foul protesting a five-second call on Mahoney. Shea sat down the rest of the game so he wasn't ejected from the gym bearing his name.

"I can't remember the last technical I got," Shea said, chuckling about it later.

He could afford it. There was no evidence pointing to the possibility of a perfect regular season as practice began, not with Mahoney, who will play Division I college basketball, recovering from a knee injury.

Yet as the season matured, so did the Bobcats.

"Everyone's attitude is where it should be," Mahoney said. "We cot a couple of great wins in the middle of the year over Windham and NFA that we kind of pulled out that contributed to it."

Shea figured Avon would be a considerable hurdle to the perfect regular season.

"We knew (Caroline Jadovich) had made a lot of threes this season, 19 in her last three games," Shea said. "We were very concerned about them."

Jadovich scored nine points.

The top-seeded Bobcats will play in the ECC tournament quarterfinals on Saturday, awaiting the winner of Thursday's St. Bernard-Fitch playdown game.

m.dimauro@theday.com