BARRE, Vt. — A frustrated White River Valley boys basketball team and its fans saw an undefeated season come to a disappointing conclusion on Thursday night, falling short of the program’s championship goals.

Fifth-seeded Hazen pulled off a 62-50 upset in the teams’ Vermont Division III semifinal at Barre Auditorium in a contest destined to be remembered by the Wildcats for the officiating.

White River Valley (22-1) and its supporters were vocal throughout Thursday’s contest in their displeasure with its three referees. The trio exited out the back of the Auditorium in the company of two police officers, who walked them to their cars.

“We got railroaded,” said third-year White River Valley coach D.J. Craven upon exiting the locker room.

His team was whistled for 25 fouls while Hazen picked up nine.

Craven quickly gathered himself, then issued a mea culpa.

“I’m not blaming it on the officials, but their calls were just so lopsided,” he said. “I guess I didn’t prepare our guys enough. I don’t know what the right answer is.”

White River Valley’s Zander Clark had 16 points and Brayden Russ added 14 points. Starting post player Donovan Craven was held to two points and fouled out with seconds remaining.

The Wildcats’ last loss came to rival Thetford at the postseason’s same stage last year, when they couldn’t hold a 20-point lead in the third quarter. Second-seeded Thetford beat Winooski in Thursday’s other semifinal and will face Hazen for the title on Saturday.

The opening two minutes saw White River Valley take a 6-0 lead while causing four Hazen turnovers. White River Valley took 11 shots during that span while allowing one, but it was Hazen that led, 13-12, after a quarter.

Hazen (17-6) trailed, 26-24, early in the third quarter before 5-foot-9 Brendan Moodie caught fire. The senior guard hit four 3-point shots in four minutes, helping his team on a 14-2 run.

“We talked about not leaving Moodie alone, but we didn’t do it,” said D.J. Craven, who wished his players hadn’t used help-side defense so much, freeing up Hazen shooters behind them. “We gave him too much space. Just a little bit too much space.

“They’re an amazing team, but I really think there was more than basketball at play. We’re getting smashed, and then we breathe on them and it’s a foul.”

White River Valley pulled within three points with five minutes to play and again with four minutes remaining but was outscored, 16-7, the rest of the way.

Hazen took 15 foul shots during the game’s final 4 minutes and 42 seconds, making nine of them, while White River Valley took seven and made two.

“Fouls don’t cost the game, but when they take your momentum away every single time, it’s disheartening,” D.J. Craven said. “But we also go through the motions sometimes.”

White River Valley has played the last two years at the Southern Vermont League C level, weaker competition that doesn’t provide the best preparation the state tournament’s rigors. D.J. Craven said he’s finally convinced his administration to place his team at the B level for next winter.

“We knew our schedule was going to cost us and it has, two years in a row,” said Craven.

The coach said he’s looking forward to facing the likes of larger schools such as Hartford and Burr & Burton during the regular season.

“I’d rather be 10-10 and battle-tested than 20-0 and walk over everybody,” he said.

Craven said he doesn’t believe his players overlooked Hazen in hopes of a rematch with rival Thetford, pointing out that Hazen scored 101 points on White River Valley two years ago while eliminating them in the quarterfinals.

“Hazen put that big number on us and slapped us in the face pretty hard, so they were check No. 1,” Craven said.

“But we usually hit shots, and tonight we didn’t.”

White River Valley, which lost the 2022 Division IV final to Blue Mountain, will lose starters Donovan Craven, Brayden Russ, Wyatt Cadwell and Zander Clark to graduation in June.

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