BARRE, Vt. — The Thetford Academy boys basketball team did not just, as their warmup shirts read Saturday, “Journey to the Tourney.” They won the whole thing.

Riding a red-hot first half at the Barre Auditorium, the Panthers captured their second consecutive VPA Division III championship and their eighth title overall with a 58-44 defeat of Hazen.

Thetford has claimed four crowns during the past seven seasons under ninth-year coach Jason Gray, a former star with the Panthers and at Vermont State-Lyndon.

“I honestly can’t put words to it,” Gray said outside his team’s basement locker room, a game net around his neck and the championship trophy cradled in his arms. “These guys worked so hard and deserve it so much. I’m happy to be the coach who helped put them where they are.”

Thetford, which also won back-to-back titles in 2019 and 2020, was led in scoring by Hunter Clay, who had 19 points. The senior guard had 15 points in last year’s championship game.

Matt Vivian had 15 points on Saturday for second-seeded Thetford, which led, 19-6, after a quarter and 36-20 at halftime.

Vivian’s biggest contribution, however, might have been as defensive stopper on Hazen star Brendan Moodie, who torched White River Valley during the semifinals but scored only 12 points Saturday, four of them during the first half.

“We couldn’t let Moodie get away,” Clay said. “That was Matt’s one job, and he did it awesome.”

The Panthers held what had been a strong-shooting opponent to a 3-of-11 performance from the floor during the first quarter while they hit on 13 out of 22 of their own field-goal attempts, including five of eight 3-pointers.

“That’s four years of having one of the best coaches in the state,” said Clay, crediting Gray’s intense practices, which are high on defense and communication. “He’s still in his younger years so he can jump in and put us in our places, which ramps everything up.”

The Wildcats (17-7) didn’t make any of their eight 3-point attempts before halftime and finished with two such buckets, but only during the game’s final two minutes.

“We got the (opening) tip, we got the first points and then we just executed,” Gray said. “Defensively, we played maybe our best game of the season. It’s just help-side man-to-man. If you’re two passes away, you have to be underneath the basket to help or you’re probably sitting on the bench.

“These seniors bought in from day one, and they taught everybody else.”

An unusual facet of Thetford’s strong run is that it doesn’t enjoy a strong, centralized feeder system. Gray said his work and home life responsibilities, along with coaching, limit his chances to try and establish such a benefit and that he simply coaches whomever shows up the first day of practice.

Thetford (21-3) also featured players from Chelsea and Waits River this season and can accept students from locales such as Lyme and Hartland, but to thrive without a coordinated, lower-level effort is a bit stunning.

“Hopefully, someone gets in there and builds so we can keep this program going,” Gray said. “You don’t know what you’re going to get right now. It’s kind of an interesting crapshoot.”

The coach noted that while Thetford lost only one senior to graduation after last season, he rarely held out another title as a frequent target to this winter’s squad.

“I didn’t have a lot of expectations for this year,” Gray said. “I thought it could happen but I wasn’t certain, and I didn’t want to express that it was going to happen.”

Tris Wykes can be reached at ctwykes@aol.com.