The Southside Tavern Division II Quarterfinal Preview
2015-03-14
Can Schuyler Hedberg and St Thomas do it again?
By Dave Haley Photo by Savannah Carberry
Thank you to all of you parents & coaches who have become a contributor to our website with your donation. If you haven’t seen our three minute message that explains what I am talking about please do by clicking the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJxo5vWEn2o
We want to thank Jeff Holmes and the Exeter boys’ basketball booster club for their recent donation and support of our coverage.
We will be announcing details of our first ever NHsportspage year-end party for players & parents where we will hand out player of the year and coach of the year in each division and debut our 2014-2015 Season Highlights. Details to come…
Division II
(8) Hanover at (1) Portsmouth
Two teams that have hung their hat on their defense square off for the right to advance to Durham next week.
Head coaches Tim Winslow of Hanover and Jim Mulvey of Portsmouth have squared off several times over the years, including once in a championship game, and have a mutual respect for one another. Mulvey is a tireless analyzer of film and scouting reports; his teams are always prepared to the point where he reminds me of Lou Holtz when he was at Notre Dame coaching the top ranked Irish and spent 15 minutes at a press conference talking about how dangerous an 0-7 SMU team was.
Notre Dame would win that game 59-6..
Hanover is going to be methodical with the ball. The pace isn’t as important as the rate at which they’re able to score. It’s also easy to play at a slower pace in tight games and a lot harder to do when you’re down 22-10. Hanover has to get out quick and establish that game plan.
For Portsmouth it will be business as usual, they can excel on both ends of the floor and have been the best team in Division II wire to wire to this point.
(5) Merrimack Valley at (4) Lebanon
MV was nearly the second top seed to go down in the first round Monday night but pulled out a one point win over a very game Hollis-Brookline team.
Friday night they match up well with a Lebanon team looking for a third consecutive trip to the Final Four. The keys for Kevin O’Brien’s team will be taking care of the basketball against constant full court pressure. The Pride have a good point guard in Nate Mulleavy and his ability to make good decisions under duress is going to tell you a lot about how well MV does.
He’ll square off with all-state point guard KJ Matte, and his job Friday night is to find Bruce Barton in the post and move the ball amongst Justin Williams and Cole Remillard. Keith Matte’s team likes to get out and go. They don’t need KJ leading them down the floor on every trip. Ryan Milliken will get out in transition in a hurry and Austin Whaley is a veteran by this point, this Lebanon team has been in a number of these big games. The stage won’t affect them.
(15) St. Thomas at (10) Goffstown
I would have loved to see the expressions on the face of the Goffstown players when it dawned on them that they had a home game in the quarterfinal round. The Grizzlies win was overshadowed only by the team they face Friday night. Mark Elmendorf’s team went over to Northwood and drove off with a double digit win against a good Coe-Brown team.
One coach I spoke to Tuesday morning called the Saints 58-54 upset win over Manchester West the biggest upset in the division in the last decade. St. Thomas head coach Dave Sokolnicki had his team playing the same Grinnell College offense in looking for the first open three but he changed up his defense, and it won him the game.
Sokolnicki had his team in a triangle & 2 guarding West’s two best players Zach Jones & Monytung Maker man to man with principles about where to help on the floor and where to stay in place. The result was allowing West to shoot three’s..too many three’s and that inadvertently put West in St. Thomas’ game. West made a late run after Schuyler Hedberg fouled out but it wasn’t enough. West had lost for the first time in 17 Division II games.
These two teams did face each other back on January 12th, a game Goffstown won 68-54, but that will hardly matter Friday night. There is a lot more at stake and each team has improved. The Grizzlies need to avoid getting into the same up & down game West was lured into Monday night.
We will have full coverage of this one as Justin McIsaac & The Great Jon Kesty will bring you all the highlights, play by play and post-game interviews.
(6) Windham at (3) Bishop Brady
Pete Tarrier and Jennifer Chick will have full coverage of this one as part of our 20 games in 21 days coverage.
Windham head coach Todd Steffanides felt good about his team after surviving an overtime win over Kennett not because of how the overtime ended but how it began.
Kennett all-state guard Brandon DeLucchio hit a buzzer beating three to force overtime and as Windham came back to the huddle Steffanides noticed how poised his senior laden team was. There was no lamenting the situation they were in or even concern about how it would all play out. Windham basically said ‘Ok let’s go beat them in overtime’ and even facing deficits in the extras period throughout, did just that.
They’ll face a very tough test when they head to Concord Friday night. David Carbonello has arguably been just as good as Brady all-state guard Jourdain Bell in his senior season and their match-up is going to be a fun one to watch. The Jaguars need to defend Brendan Johnson and bottle up the lane when Jourdain or brother Joe make their way towards the basket.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJxo5vWEn2o
We want to thank Jeff Holmes and the Exeter boys’ basketball booster club for their recent donation and support of our coverage.
We will be announcing details of our first ever NHsportspage year-end party for players & parents where we will hand out player of the year and coach of the year in each division and debut our 2014-2015 Season Highlights. Details to come…
Division II
(8) Hanover at (1) Portsmouth
Two teams that have hung their hat on their defense square off for the right to advance to Durham next week.
Head coaches Tim Winslow of Hanover and Jim Mulvey of Portsmouth have squared off several times over the years, including once in a championship game, and have a mutual respect for one another. Mulvey is a tireless analyzer of film and scouting reports; his teams are always prepared to the point where he reminds me of Lou Holtz when he was at Notre Dame coaching the top ranked Irish and spent 15 minutes at a press conference talking about how dangerous an 0-7 SMU team was.
Notre Dame would win that game 59-6..
Hanover is going to be methodical with the ball. The pace isn’t as important as the rate at which they’re able to score. It’s also easy to play at a slower pace in tight games and a lot harder to do when you’re down 22-10. Hanover has to get out quick and establish that game plan.
For Portsmouth it will be business as usual, they can excel on both ends of the floor and have been the best team in Division II wire to wire to this point.
(5) Merrimack Valley at (4) Lebanon
MV was nearly the second top seed to go down in the first round Monday night but pulled out a one point win over a very game Hollis-Brookline team.
Friday night they match up well with a Lebanon team looking for a third consecutive trip to the Final Four. The keys for Kevin O’Brien’s team will be taking care of the basketball against constant full court pressure. The Pride have a good point guard in Nate Mulleavy and his ability to make good decisions under duress is going to tell you a lot about how well MV does.
He’ll square off with all-state point guard KJ Matte, and his job Friday night is to find Bruce Barton in the post and move the ball amongst Justin Williams and Cole Remillard. Keith Matte’s team likes to get out and go. They don’t need KJ leading them down the floor on every trip. Ryan Milliken will get out in transition in a hurry and Austin Whaley is a veteran by this point, this Lebanon team has been in a number of these big games. The stage won’t affect them.
(15) St. Thomas at (10) Goffstown
I would have loved to see the expressions on the face of the Goffstown players when it dawned on them that they had a home game in the quarterfinal round. The Grizzlies win was overshadowed only by the team they face Friday night. Mark Elmendorf’s team went over to Northwood and drove off with a double digit win against a good Coe-Brown team.
One coach I spoke to Tuesday morning called the Saints 58-54 upset win over Manchester West the biggest upset in the division in the last decade. St. Thomas head coach Dave Sokolnicki had his team playing the same Grinnell College offense in looking for the first open three but he changed up his defense, and it won him the game.
Sokolnicki had his team in a triangle & 2 guarding West’s two best players Zach Jones & Monytung Maker man to man with principles about where to help on the floor and where to stay in place. The result was allowing West to shoot three’s..too many three’s and that inadvertently put West in St. Thomas’ game. West made a late run after Schuyler Hedberg fouled out but it wasn’t enough. West had lost for the first time in 17 Division II games.
These two teams did face each other back on January 12th, a game Goffstown won 68-54, but that will hardly matter Friday night. There is a lot more at stake and each team has improved. The Grizzlies need to avoid getting into the same up & down game West was lured into Monday night.
We will have full coverage of this one as Justin McIsaac & The Great Jon Kesty will bring you all the highlights, play by play and post-game interviews.
(6) Windham at (3) Bishop Brady
Pete Tarrier and Jennifer Chick will have full coverage of this one as part of our 20 games in 21 days coverage.
Windham head coach Todd Steffanides felt good about his team after surviving an overtime win over Kennett not because of how the overtime ended but how it began.
Kennett all-state guard Brandon DeLucchio hit a buzzer beating three to force overtime and as Windham came back to the huddle Steffanides noticed how poised his senior laden team was. There was no lamenting the situation they were in or even concern about how it would all play out. Windham basically said ‘Ok let’s go beat them in overtime’ and even facing deficits in the extras period throughout, did just that.
They’ll face a very tough test when they head to Concord Friday night. David Carbonello has arguably been just as good as Brady all-state guard Jourdain Bell in his senior season and their match-up is going to be a fun one to watch. The Jaguars need to defend Brendan Johnson and bottle up the lane when Jourdain or brother Joe make their way towards the basket.