The Beals Insurance Holiday Thoughts Column
2016-01-02
Portsmouth's Cody Graham exploded for 37 points in the BABC Tournament
By Dave Haley
We head into our ninth calendar year of high school basketball coverage by thanking the parents, players & coaches that have extended their support to us so far as we hope to make a ninth year possible.
As a team of six people with families & full time jobs, we do all the work that we bring you at New Hampshire Sportspage on our ‘free time’. We cannot continue without the support of our over 1,000 readers. So far we have received Gold Level donations from about a dozen or so of our readers and we want to thank them today.
Thank you to our newest Gold Level Members (who will receive every game we cover this season IN FULL via a YouTube video emailed to them after every game).
Vic & Christine Brown of Pelham
Jim Mulvey of Portsmouth
Tim Goodridge of Merrimack
Dennis Ordway
Trevor Howard of Littleton
Jamie Lesperance of Groveton
Mark Collins of Groveton
The Matte family of Lebanon
Mike Malette of Bow
Jerry T of Wilton-Lyndeborough
Stephen Pearcy of Ratt
The Mascenic Basketball Boosters
Scott Currier of Nute
And Rob Fauci of Somersworth
We will continue to thank our much needed supporters as the year goes on.
Every year the two week Holiday break gives us a pause in the regular season and an opportunity to see teams from two or three different divisions competing under one bracket.
Experience will tell you that you need to look at holiday tourneys from the proper perspective. Sure the results can be a glimpse of what's to come this season but they also can be affected by coaches playing every guy all the way to the end of the bench and doing more teaching on the sidelines than actual coaching. Sometimes the opening round games feature more effort and enthusiasm than the championship match-up that ends up as the third game in as many days.
The games don't count in the standings and the bigger picture is to learn and improve for when the games count. Still there is insight to be gleaned from the ‘exhibition' games.
Today in our first article of 2016 we take a look at what we learned over the past 10 days.
Nashua South was nice enough to invite Merrimack to their Chick-Fil-A Tournament…..and Merrimack proceeded to take their title…
Nate Mazerolle’s team had designs on a fifth straight title before Merrimack left the Queen City Tournament to claim their first Chick-Fil-A title with wins over Thornton Academy, South and Nashua North in front of hundreds of fans and an exhausted Pete Tarrier. Our partner ESPN NH covered the event live (with all the highlights right here on NHsportspage) and forgot to give poor Pete his legally required bathroom breaks during eight consecutive hours of coverage. Word is by hour #8 he was starting to look like Tom Hanks at the end of ‘Captain Phillips.’
Merrimack was the best defensive team in the tournament and that’s where they won it. Nashua South is going to look one dimensional at times until center Max Osgood returns from a wrist injury but the backcourt of DJ Frechette and Kevin Genao is enough to win on most nights. In slowing down the South backcourt & Ronnie Silva of Nashua North in the final Merrimack proved they are going to be able to defend elite backcourts. Coaches often lament the fact they lack a 6’2 perimeter defender that can slow down scorers, well Tim Goodridge owns that valuable commodity.
Nashua North won a pair of games before dropping the title game and has as good of a perimeter attack as any team in Division I with Silva, Nate Hale and the emerging Alonzo Linton. Steve Lane’s team will be a tough out again come March and may make it all the way back to Durham.
Milford is going to be a Top 6 team in Division II as expected with a balanced lineup led by Ryan Banuskevich, Kirk Palladino and shot blocker Dan Murray. They’ll get a big test Tuesday night when they take on arch-rival Souhegan. The Sabers gave Nashua South all they could handle in the first round with Jerrell Webster emerging as one of the best players in the tournament.
Exeter might be pretty good…………….
I’d say that’s a fairly safe statement at this point. Cody Morrisette was the talk of the tourney and if he was the best player in the tournament his running mate Bryant Holmes was right there with him. Jeff Holmes’ team beat Dover and Bedford on their way to a finals showdown with pre-season #1 Manchester Central and then sucked all the suspense out of the building by crushing The Little Green from start to finish.
The thought on Exeter is they are at their best when they focus on their two best offensive weapons (the Chris Petzy era for example) and run everything off of those players. Exeter has struggled when they are playing 11 guys a night and trying to win with six guys scoring nine points a night. What they have in 2016 could be the formula that gets Exeter back to Durham after they missed the post-season altogether a year ago. Morissette is a coach’s dream, and a coach’s son for that matter. He can stroke it but he is at his best creating off the dribble and forcing help defenders to leave their men. Holmes has to be guarded out to 24 feet and has bulked up over the off-season, allowing him to finish in traffic better than he did as an underclassman. Add to that a big man like Stephen Natola plus a frontline of 6’3 athletes and Exeter matches up well with any team in the state.
You never want to overreact to holiday tournament results but this wasn’t a smoke & mirrors three day run. Exeter is 2-0, soon to be 3-0 and has the pieces to keep them in the conversation into March. If they stick to a shorter rotation and run their offense through their all-state backcourt this could be a special year for Jeff Holmes and Exeter.
It wasn’t as pleasant an experience for Division II pre-season #1 Lebanon in their first Queen City go around. Keith Matte’s team had dreams of squaring off with Central in front of a packed house but instead where beaten in a first round game by Bedford when all-state guard KJ Matte got into early foul trouble and the Raiders missed numerous easy drives. They bounced back with wins over Dover and a two point win over Manchester West (in one of those ‘I’m going to show you half my stuff now and save the best for the games that count’ games) but overall it had to be a disappointing trip. Central beat Trinity in the opener and Memorial in the semifinals to win the city-half of the bracket. Evan MacDonald and Jaylen Leroy each played well as did guard Jonathan Makori but Central’s Achilles heel, their inexperience at point guard, reared its ugly head in the blowout loss to Exeter as Makori struggled.
Pinkerton’s loss was extremely bad news for every team in Division III………………
Pelham’s 65-62 win over pre-season #2 Pinkerton Academy and Conant’s win over New York Division I foe Mamaroneck high school only further illustrated the gap between those two and every other team in Division III.
Pre-season first team all-state forward Brandon Ford returned for Conant after sitting out the first two games of the season and was named to the all-tournament team at the Keene Holiday Tournament along with teammate Josh Degrenier. Both players were forced to sit out, along with starting center CJ Bilodeau, a 52-51 road win over Kearsarge ten days earlier. That result along with Pelham beating a very solid Bow team 71-43 illustrates the gap.
In the win over Pinkerton Player of the Year Keith Brown went for 41 points before the Pythons dropped the championship game to Lowell (MA) the next night.
That is the level they are playing at and Conant is the only team today that can compete with them. I’m sorry if that ruins your New Year’s Day…it’s the truth.
Teams like Winnisquam, Bow, Kearsarge, Hopkinton etc..are very good teams and in most Division III years they would be competing against each other for the title. The problem is, at least this season, Conant and Pelham hardly resemble Division III teams. They play year round and against tougher competition. That prepares them for March unlike the teams they are fighting to get there with.
Anyone still citing Pelham’s enrollment as the reason for their success needs a few days in the NFL’s concussion protocol, the Pelham baseball team went 2-16 in Division III last year. It’s not the amount of the kids in the school; it’s who they play when they are outside of their Division III schedule. The games against Pinkerton and Lowell (MA) are another example.
Overall it wasn’t total doom & gloom around the division. Winnisquam won their second consecutive Lakes Region Holiday tournament but did so by beating three teams (Belmont, Laconia & Kingswood) who didn’t finish in the Top 16 playoff spots a year ago. Gilford was beaten by Kingswood in the semifinal round, another disappointing finish for the hosts.
Franklin was beaten soundly by Division IV power Littleton 65-49 in the Hanover Holiday tournament, Bow & Kearsarge fell to Bishop Brady in the Capital City Classic while Hopkinton fell to Pembroke Academy. Berlin lost to Groveton up north while Mascenic Regional lost to Epping in the Keene Tournament.
Teams get better, players get injured and upsets occur, no one needs to sell me on that.Last season Campbell had four starters back from a finals team and Berlin had four back from a team that nearly knocked off Conant. Those teams either don’t exist this season or have yet to be identified. There is plenty of time left to show it but that is where we sit today.
Why is undefeated defending champion Bishop Brady all the way down here???
It’s a good question. The answer is because most people expect Brady to fall back to the middle of the Division II pack and until they beat a team with a winning record the doubters are going to remain. What The Giants were able to do in defending their Capital City title was show you the blueprint Cole Etten’s team is going to use in defending their title. Joe Bell is showing he is more than capable of getting you 20 points against good teams (he scored 27 against Pembroke), Matt Quirk is one of the teams most improved players and Bryce Johnson (15 pts. & 7 rebounds in the final) has stepped in as the team’s third option.
Bell can defend scorers like Cody Graham , KJ Matte and Joe Simpson while improving his jumper enough to keep defenses honest. In the same tourney Kearsarge fell to Brady 57-40 and Hopkinton picked up a win over Division I Concord before falling in the semifinals to the Spartans.
Random Holiday tournament observations…..
For the umpteenth time..Spaulding’s Tim Cronin is just a terrific basketball coach…Spaulding beat Winnacunnet (minus Freddy Schaake out with an ankle injury) for the Oyster River Holiday Tournament title…Cal Connelly is playing at an all-state level and has embraced the leadership role while Spaulding was content to pack it in defensively and make the Warriors beat them from the outside……The Fighting McIsaac’s may be a year away but that’s a year earlier than we thought two weeks ago…a pair of freshman are getting big minutes and both Keagan Calero and Ari Breakfield look like keepers……….Oyster River is already much improved from last season, they may not be a strong candidate for the Final Four but Lorne Lucas’s imprint is starting to show and in Collin Runk, Griffin Luczek and freshman Max Lewis he has some pieces to work with………Epping took Division I Keene to the wire in one of the best games of the Holidays before losing by three points…..3-0 Keene won three ‘take care of business games’ to open the season, now it’s the real test against Doc Wheeler and Manchester Central Tuesday night……Wilton-Lyndeborough continues to win without wowing anyone who sees them but this team will come together nicely once Casey Lane is back in the lineup full time….Trey & Ty Carrier have held up their end of expectations while Sean McClure is one of the best rebounders in Division IV……………Portsmouth quietly might have had the best break of any team in the state….The Clippers lost an overtime game to New Bedford (MA) (Late game free throws are officially this teams Achilles heel) and then came back the next night to beat Cambridge Rindge & Latin 65-49 behind 37 points from sophomore Cody Graham, who had Twitter blowing up from here to Boston after that performance……………Joey Glynn is the best big man in the state by the way…………….Londonderry is trending in the right direction under Nate Stanton after advancing to the Finals of the Commonwealth classic against Central Catholic…..Jake Coleman had 27 points in the semifinals and the Lancers do not look anything like the team that was down 33-11 to Bedford on opening night………….by the way there are few better coaches their age in New England than Matt Regan, Nate Stanton and Eric Saucier….all three could someday coach at the next level if they choose to…………………..You sort of miss the old Pembroke don’t you? ………I do too…….I have no clue how good either Bedford or Memorial is at this point…….Woodsville and Littleton are both playing very well right now…that’s a big showdown on January 8th, so do yourself a favor and check it out when it airs live on the Northeast Sports Network…Kevin Trask and Butch Ladd will be in the (packed) house………Colebrook is adjusting to new point guard and Rhode Island transplant Jose Alvarado just as Alvarado is surely adjusting to Colebrook…I watched Alvarado throw three straight passes against Littleton shortly before the Holiday break that bounced off of teammates hands out of bounds so it’s not all on him but the one handed passes are going to send Buddy Trask to the Nut house if he keeps firing them all over the court…..I think he could be pretty good once he settles in…….just get Sedrick Mckinnon good looks……..I still can't get used to watching Don Picard coach the Berlin girls team...........Groveton didn’t overwhelm anyone but wins over Berlin & Colebrook were a good showing for Mark Collins’ team…Corey Gadwah was the best player on the floor against Colebrook and Daegan Lurvey wasn’t far behind…..Groveton/Woodsville on January 29th will be HUGE…I may have to be there for that one……...Sam Natti’s Lisbon Panthers took 23 three pointers in a 12 point loss to Pittsburg-Canaan, he then implemented a rule where they would not take any three pointers two days later and the result was a 13 point win over Profile………..by the way Lisbon has no business taking 23 three pointers..ever……Sam knows this……….Is Trinity just a team that always starts slow?....More likely they are struggling with guys who can score but are not good defenders and some players who defend well but struggle offensively..…Matt Lemieux will get it figured out.................Milford might be the fourth best team in Division II……….There is a chance a team comes out of the Lakes Region 13-5 (I’m not naming the team..) and then loses their tournament game by 25……….Sunapee made a nice run behind Matt Tenney in the B division of the Keene tournament, the question with Ed Tenney’s team is their ceiling because right now it looks like the quarterfinals.
We are back Tuesday night. Jennifer Chick and I will be in Hampton to bring you Pinkerton at Winnacunnet while Pete Tarrier & The Great Jon Kesty will (most likely) be in Milford for a match-up between the Spartans and rival Souhegan.
If you’re a regular reader of our work we hope you’ll support us and become a Gold Level Member.
Happy New Years and Go IRISH!!!!
As a team of six people with families & full time jobs, we do all the work that we bring you at New Hampshire Sportspage on our ‘free time’. We cannot continue without the support of our over 1,000 readers. So far we have received Gold Level donations from about a dozen or so of our readers and we want to thank them today.
Thank you to our newest Gold Level Members (who will receive every game we cover this season IN FULL via a YouTube video emailed to them after every game).
Vic & Christine Brown of Pelham
Jim Mulvey of Portsmouth
Tim Goodridge of Merrimack
Dennis Ordway
Trevor Howard of Littleton
Jamie Lesperance of Groveton
Mark Collins of Groveton
The Matte family of Lebanon
Mike Malette of Bow
Jerry T of Wilton-Lyndeborough
Stephen Pearcy of Ratt
The Mascenic Basketball Boosters
Scott Currier of Nute
And Rob Fauci of Somersworth
We will continue to thank our much needed supporters as the year goes on.
Every year the two week Holiday break gives us a pause in the regular season and an opportunity to see teams from two or three different divisions competing under one bracket.
Experience will tell you that you need to look at holiday tourneys from the proper perspective. Sure the results can be a glimpse of what's to come this season but they also can be affected by coaches playing every guy all the way to the end of the bench and doing more teaching on the sidelines than actual coaching. Sometimes the opening round games feature more effort and enthusiasm than the championship match-up that ends up as the third game in as many days.
The games don't count in the standings and the bigger picture is to learn and improve for when the games count. Still there is insight to be gleaned from the ‘exhibition' games.
Today in our first article of 2016 we take a look at what we learned over the past 10 days.
Nashua South was nice enough to invite Merrimack to their Chick-Fil-A Tournament…..and Merrimack proceeded to take their title…
Nate Mazerolle’s team had designs on a fifth straight title before Merrimack left the Queen City Tournament to claim their first Chick-Fil-A title with wins over Thornton Academy, South and Nashua North in front of hundreds of fans and an exhausted Pete Tarrier. Our partner ESPN NH covered the event live (with all the highlights right here on NHsportspage) and forgot to give poor Pete his legally required bathroom breaks during eight consecutive hours of coverage. Word is by hour #8 he was starting to look like Tom Hanks at the end of ‘Captain Phillips.’
Merrimack was the best defensive team in the tournament and that’s where they won it. Nashua South is going to look one dimensional at times until center Max Osgood returns from a wrist injury but the backcourt of DJ Frechette and Kevin Genao is enough to win on most nights. In slowing down the South backcourt & Ronnie Silva of Nashua North in the final Merrimack proved they are going to be able to defend elite backcourts. Coaches often lament the fact they lack a 6’2 perimeter defender that can slow down scorers, well Tim Goodridge owns that valuable commodity.
Nashua North won a pair of games before dropping the title game and has as good of a perimeter attack as any team in Division I with Silva, Nate Hale and the emerging Alonzo Linton. Steve Lane’s team will be a tough out again come March and may make it all the way back to Durham.
Milford is going to be a Top 6 team in Division II as expected with a balanced lineup led by Ryan Banuskevich, Kirk Palladino and shot blocker Dan Murray. They’ll get a big test Tuesday night when they take on arch-rival Souhegan. The Sabers gave Nashua South all they could handle in the first round with Jerrell Webster emerging as one of the best players in the tournament.
Exeter might be pretty good…………….
I’d say that’s a fairly safe statement at this point. Cody Morrisette was the talk of the tourney and if he was the best player in the tournament his running mate Bryant Holmes was right there with him. Jeff Holmes’ team beat Dover and Bedford on their way to a finals showdown with pre-season #1 Manchester Central and then sucked all the suspense out of the building by crushing The Little Green from start to finish.
The thought on Exeter is they are at their best when they focus on their two best offensive weapons (the Chris Petzy era for example) and run everything off of those players. Exeter has struggled when they are playing 11 guys a night and trying to win with six guys scoring nine points a night. What they have in 2016 could be the formula that gets Exeter back to Durham after they missed the post-season altogether a year ago. Morissette is a coach’s dream, and a coach’s son for that matter. He can stroke it but he is at his best creating off the dribble and forcing help defenders to leave their men. Holmes has to be guarded out to 24 feet and has bulked up over the off-season, allowing him to finish in traffic better than he did as an underclassman. Add to that a big man like Stephen Natola plus a frontline of 6’3 athletes and Exeter matches up well with any team in the state.
You never want to overreact to holiday tournament results but this wasn’t a smoke & mirrors three day run. Exeter is 2-0, soon to be 3-0 and has the pieces to keep them in the conversation into March. If they stick to a shorter rotation and run their offense through their all-state backcourt this could be a special year for Jeff Holmes and Exeter.
It wasn’t as pleasant an experience for Division II pre-season #1 Lebanon in their first Queen City go around. Keith Matte’s team had dreams of squaring off with Central in front of a packed house but instead where beaten in a first round game by Bedford when all-state guard KJ Matte got into early foul trouble and the Raiders missed numerous easy drives. They bounced back with wins over Dover and a two point win over Manchester West (in one of those ‘I’m going to show you half my stuff now and save the best for the games that count’ games) but overall it had to be a disappointing trip. Central beat Trinity in the opener and Memorial in the semifinals to win the city-half of the bracket. Evan MacDonald and Jaylen Leroy each played well as did guard Jonathan Makori but Central’s Achilles heel, their inexperience at point guard, reared its ugly head in the blowout loss to Exeter as Makori struggled.
Pinkerton’s loss was extremely bad news for every team in Division III………………
Pelham’s 65-62 win over pre-season #2 Pinkerton Academy and Conant’s win over New York Division I foe Mamaroneck high school only further illustrated the gap between those two and every other team in Division III.
Pre-season first team all-state forward Brandon Ford returned for Conant after sitting out the first two games of the season and was named to the all-tournament team at the Keene Holiday Tournament along with teammate Josh Degrenier. Both players were forced to sit out, along with starting center CJ Bilodeau, a 52-51 road win over Kearsarge ten days earlier. That result along with Pelham beating a very solid Bow team 71-43 illustrates the gap.
In the win over Pinkerton Player of the Year Keith Brown went for 41 points before the Pythons dropped the championship game to Lowell (MA) the next night.
That is the level they are playing at and Conant is the only team today that can compete with them. I’m sorry if that ruins your New Year’s Day…it’s the truth.
Teams like Winnisquam, Bow, Kearsarge, Hopkinton etc..are very good teams and in most Division III years they would be competing against each other for the title. The problem is, at least this season, Conant and Pelham hardly resemble Division III teams. They play year round and against tougher competition. That prepares them for March unlike the teams they are fighting to get there with.
Anyone still citing Pelham’s enrollment as the reason for their success needs a few days in the NFL’s concussion protocol, the Pelham baseball team went 2-16 in Division III last year. It’s not the amount of the kids in the school; it’s who they play when they are outside of their Division III schedule. The games against Pinkerton and Lowell (MA) are another example.
Overall it wasn’t total doom & gloom around the division. Winnisquam won their second consecutive Lakes Region Holiday tournament but did so by beating three teams (Belmont, Laconia & Kingswood) who didn’t finish in the Top 16 playoff spots a year ago. Gilford was beaten by Kingswood in the semifinal round, another disappointing finish for the hosts.
Franklin was beaten soundly by Division IV power Littleton 65-49 in the Hanover Holiday tournament, Bow & Kearsarge fell to Bishop Brady in the Capital City Classic while Hopkinton fell to Pembroke Academy. Berlin lost to Groveton up north while Mascenic Regional lost to Epping in the Keene Tournament.
Teams get better, players get injured and upsets occur, no one needs to sell me on that.Last season Campbell had four starters back from a finals team and Berlin had four back from a team that nearly knocked off Conant. Those teams either don’t exist this season or have yet to be identified. There is plenty of time left to show it but that is where we sit today.
Why is undefeated defending champion Bishop Brady all the way down here???
It’s a good question. The answer is because most people expect Brady to fall back to the middle of the Division II pack and until they beat a team with a winning record the doubters are going to remain. What The Giants were able to do in defending their Capital City title was show you the blueprint Cole Etten’s team is going to use in defending their title. Joe Bell is showing he is more than capable of getting you 20 points against good teams (he scored 27 against Pembroke), Matt Quirk is one of the teams most improved players and Bryce Johnson (15 pts. & 7 rebounds in the final) has stepped in as the team’s third option.
Bell can defend scorers like Cody Graham , KJ Matte and Joe Simpson while improving his jumper enough to keep defenses honest. In the same tourney Kearsarge fell to Brady 57-40 and Hopkinton picked up a win over Division I Concord before falling in the semifinals to the Spartans.
Random Holiday tournament observations…..
For the umpteenth time..Spaulding’s Tim Cronin is just a terrific basketball coach…Spaulding beat Winnacunnet (minus Freddy Schaake out with an ankle injury) for the Oyster River Holiday Tournament title…Cal Connelly is playing at an all-state level and has embraced the leadership role while Spaulding was content to pack it in defensively and make the Warriors beat them from the outside……The Fighting McIsaac’s may be a year away but that’s a year earlier than we thought two weeks ago…a pair of freshman are getting big minutes and both Keagan Calero and Ari Breakfield look like keepers……….Oyster River is already much improved from last season, they may not be a strong candidate for the Final Four but Lorne Lucas’s imprint is starting to show and in Collin Runk, Griffin Luczek and freshman Max Lewis he has some pieces to work with………Epping took Division I Keene to the wire in one of the best games of the Holidays before losing by three points…..3-0 Keene won three ‘take care of business games’ to open the season, now it’s the real test against Doc Wheeler and Manchester Central Tuesday night……Wilton-Lyndeborough continues to win without wowing anyone who sees them but this team will come together nicely once Casey Lane is back in the lineup full time….Trey & Ty Carrier have held up their end of expectations while Sean McClure is one of the best rebounders in Division IV……………Portsmouth quietly might have had the best break of any team in the state….The Clippers lost an overtime game to New Bedford (MA) (Late game free throws are officially this teams Achilles heel) and then came back the next night to beat Cambridge Rindge & Latin 65-49 behind 37 points from sophomore Cody Graham, who had Twitter blowing up from here to Boston after that performance……………Joey Glynn is the best big man in the state by the way…………….Londonderry is trending in the right direction under Nate Stanton after advancing to the Finals of the Commonwealth classic against Central Catholic…..Jake Coleman had 27 points in the semifinals and the Lancers do not look anything like the team that was down 33-11 to Bedford on opening night………….by the way there are few better coaches their age in New England than Matt Regan, Nate Stanton and Eric Saucier….all three could someday coach at the next level if they choose to…………………..You sort of miss the old Pembroke don’t you? ………I do too…….I have no clue how good either Bedford or Memorial is at this point…….Woodsville and Littleton are both playing very well right now…that’s a big showdown on January 8th, so do yourself a favor and check it out when it airs live on the Northeast Sports Network…Kevin Trask and Butch Ladd will be in the (packed) house………Colebrook is adjusting to new point guard and Rhode Island transplant Jose Alvarado just as Alvarado is surely adjusting to Colebrook…I watched Alvarado throw three straight passes against Littleton shortly before the Holiday break that bounced off of teammates hands out of bounds so it’s not all on him but the one handed passes are going to send Buddy Trask to the Nut house if he keeps firing them all over the court…..I think he could be pretty good once he settles in…….just get Sedrick Mckinnon good looks……..I still can't get used to watching Don Picard coach the Berlin girls team...........Groveton didn’t overwhelm anyone but wins over Berlin & Colebrook were a good showing for Mark Collins’ team…Corey Gadwah was the best player on the floor against Colebrook and Daegan Lurvey wasn’t far behind…..Groveton/Woodsville on January 29th will be HUGE…I may have to be there for that one……...Sam Natti’s Lisbon Panthers took 23 three pointers in a 12 point loss to Pittsburg-Canaan, he then implemented a rule where they would not take any three pointers two days later and the result was a 13 point win over Profile………..by the way Lisbon has no business taking 23 three pointers..ever……Sam knows this……….Is Trinity just a team that always starts slow?....More likely they are struggling with guys who can score but are not good defenders and some players who defend well but struggle offensively..…Matt Lemieux will get it figured out.................Milford might be the fourth best team in Division II……….There is a chance a team comes out of the Lakes Region 13-5 (I’m not naming the team..) and then loses their tournament game by 25……….Sunapee made a nice run behind Matt Tenney in the B division of the Keene tournament, the question with Ed Tenney’s team is their ceiling because right now it looks like the quarterfinals.
We are back Tuesday night. Jennifer Chick and I will be in Hampton to bring you Pinkerton at Winnacunnet while Pete Tarrier & The Great Jon Kesty will (most likely) be in Milford for a match-up between the Spartans and rival Souhegan.
If you’re a regular reader of our work we hope you’ll support us and become a Gold Level Member.
Happy New Years and Go IRISH!!!!