The Merrimack Valley Sports Thursday Thoughts for 2/11/2016
2016-02-11
Trent Noordsij leads Kearsarge against Franklin
By Dave Haley
Back with the weekly preview of the biggest games around the state.
Three weeks remain in the regular season for Division III & IV and on Friday night we will be out at a pair of big Division III games with the Top 8 seeds still very much up in the air.
Pete Tarrier and The Great Jon Kesty will be out at Mascenic when the Vikings take on arch rival Conant while Jennifer Chick and I will be out at Kearsarge when Nate Camp’s team takes on Franklin.
Our coverage will continue Saturday night when Lebanon travels to Manchester West for a huge Division II showdown.
We want to thank the parents who come to NHsportspage regularly and decided they wanted to support all of our efforts with a donation on our page.
On behalf of our entire team we want to thank:
Bobby & Terry McKinnon of Colebrook for supporting the coverage of their son Sedrick.
The Noordsij family for supporting the coverage of their son Trent of Kearsarge Regional
Stacie Caron for supporting the coverage of her son Keenan Caron of Manchester West.
Sean Young and Epping Basketball.
Each is listed on our page of donators and will be listed again on our two year end highlight videos (we are breaking up the highlights into regular season and tournament highlights)
We hope more parents will join them in becoming a part of NHsportspage by supporting the coverage we bring you every day.
Become a member of our team!
Division I
Salem (4-7) at Winnacunnet (7-4)
There were a lot of whispers going around about what was happening at Salem earlier this season so it’s time to give Rob McLaughlin & his players a lot of credit.
We’ve seen situations where players leave a team go in two very different directions and in January it looked like a Blue Devil team picked in the top 8 in the pre-season was going to fold up their tents and leave without a whimper.
It’s impossible to pinpoint where it all turned around. Some will point to the Concord loss as a wake-up call but Salem lost to Exeter by 23 points in the following game. One night later though Salem put it to Londonderry early in the first quarter and never let up in a 68-47 win. They followed that up with an overtime loss at Merrimack to a team that has not been beaten on their home floor all season.
A home win over Nashua South (struggling to win on the road) gave McLaughlin and his coaching staff the ability to convince the players that all was not lost. If ever there was a season where being the 13 seed really wasn’t that bad…this is it. Tim Dodier (8.1), DJ Coletti (10.5) and all-state center Matt Vartanian (14.4) have stepped up on both ends of the floor. In particular Salem is playing the kind of defense people expected and they have been led by a pair of very good guards Connor Greenfield & Jake Bosworth.
Friday night they play a Winnacunnet team battling through their toughest stretch of the season. Jay McKenna’s team has shown the ability to be elite defensively; in fact their win over Nashua South on Tuesday night moved them past Merrimack as the top ranked defense in the division. That sets up for a grind it out affair in Hampton Friday night.
Coming off of the Exeter game won’t be easy but with games against winless Pembroke and Alvirne at home next week the Warriors have a chance to move up the standings quickly. One game at a time…
Exeter (7-3) at Dover (2-9)
This one is the mother of all trap games for the Blue Hawks. It’s not going to be easy coming off of a huge rivalry game against Winnacunnet in a packed gymnasium to go back on the road for an area rival rested & waiting. Jeff Holmes’ team has a very tough schedule to finish the season (at Memorial, at Nashua North, Pinkerton & Spaulding at home and at Bedford to close) so they cannot afford a hiccup.
Mike Romps’ is going through a major rebuilding effort with a Dover program that was always in the mix for a Final Four berth before the talent started to seemingly evaporate the past few seasons. The Green Wave will play hard though and if it comes down to late game adjustments Romps is known as one of the best in the division. Don’t be surprised if this one is a lot closer than the records would indicate.
Division II
Lebanon (11-0) at Manchester West (10-1)
You get the sense Keith Matte’s team is really ready for this one.
The issue for the Big 3 in Division II is they have not been tested on a night to night…scratch that…a month to month basis. Kids want to be challenged and so do the coaches. It’s nice to go into a game every once and a while knowing you are going to win easily and wondering if Ollie from the end of the bench is going to throw in a three followed by the entire bench breaking up laughing, but it gets old when it is a season worth of that. It’s gotten real old for Portsmouth, Lebanon and Manchester West.
Portsmouth is 11-0 winning by an average score of 73-40 (it feels worse than that…the starters have forgotten what playing in the fourth quarter feels like). Lebanon is 11-0 and their average score is 63-34. For West…10-1..a two point loss coming to Portsmouth on opening night…69-42 is their average score. That isn’t fun for anyone but Ollie.
Lebanon got a scare from Hollis-Brookline (Mike Soucy is really building something over there..) and West similarly was tested by the social media giant that is Timberlane basketball. So it’s not like the kids don’t know how to execute in late game situations but this will be a legitimate 32 minute slugfest where the winner likely earns the 2 seed in the upcoming tournament.
If you’re West you want to dictate everything the Raiders have to do on defense. If you are Lebanon 6’8 Akok Akok has to be moved out of the post and if you front him you need weak side help. Keenan Caron at 6’4 can knock down shots from the foul line extended all day and he is the guy you absolutely have to put a body on when a shot goes up. A high/low with those two requires enough attention to open up driving lanes for Joe Simpson, Jacobee Burpee and Corey Descouteaux.
Everything should go through the post, when West starts standing around on the perimeter they become very one dimensional. Don't expect that to be the case Saturday night for Danny Bryson’s team.
Lebanon runs some very good sets on offense and no one keeps their head up looking for an opening better than KJ Matte. Expect him to be matched up with Joe Simpson in a battle of first team all-state guards. Burpee likely covers Ryan Milliken because they play the same style; small and quick as anyone on the floor. Austin Whaley likely covers Corey Descouteaux in a really good match-up. Whaley can get to the rim but is also a knockdown shooter where Descouteaux is excellent getting into the paint and creating but won’t force it from the outside.
These two teams played a down to the wire game last season that we covered up in Lebanon and you can expect the same Saturday night. If West settles for trading jump shots they are going to lose, if they force their way to the paint Lebanon is going to have to prove they can stop them.
Division III
Franklin (9-3) at Kearsarge Regional (11-2)
Franklin is a good basketball team that needs a signature win, and a victory at Kearsarge Friday night would certainly qualify.
At first glance this looks like a battle of big men when Franklin 6’7 center Dana Bean (14.8 ppg.) goes up against Kearsarge’s 6’8 center Zach Mattos but this is a game likely won in the backcourt. 6’7 Tayler Mattos (16.2) has missed the last six games with an ankle injury and recent history has showed that Bean can be slowed by big frontcourts (Gilford has done this in back to back seasons). It’s the guards who are going to decide this one.
Franklin head coach Rich Otis has a big time player in point guard Kenney Torres (19.7) who seemed to have flipped the ‘Wait a second we hardly ever lose when I score 30 points’ switch a few weeks ago. He has been terrific and on Friday night he opposes one of the best point guards in the division in Trent Noordsij (14.8). Opposing coaches rave about Noordsij for his basketball IQ and his ability to finish in the paint because of his size. Torres is much smaller and faster while Noordsij is bigger at 6’2 and considerably stronger. A one on one match-up may not evolve but both players have been given the keys to the offense by their head coaches and know how to execute in close games.
Nate Camp’s team has been given a huge lift by shooting guard Tom Johnson (15.9) and has been able to hold on to a Top 4 seed while Mattos recovers. Kearsarge needs to hold Torres in check and make someone else beat you on the perimeter while Franklin needs a big game down low by Bean to open up driving lanes for Torres and open looks for their guards.
Should be a good one Friday night in a game we will have full coverage of.
Conant (12-1) at Mascenic Regional (9-3)
Pete Tarrier returns to New Ipswich! (How many readers just said ‘So that’s where Mascenic is..’?)
The last time he was there AD Kevin Rines, Dutch Stauffeneker and Lynn Ladder/Vanguard Manufacturing had him higher above courtside than Johnny Most ever traveled, and on Friday night it’s another rivalry game with seeding on the line.
Conant wants to hold on to a Top 4 seed while all-state forward Brandon Ford recovers from a badly sprained ankle while Jason Starr’s team in trying to earn a top 8 seed and a home playoff game for a second straight year.
Two terrific backcourts square off in this one. Mascenic has been led offensively by their backcourt of Daimon Gibson (16.5) and Brett Stauffeneker (16.8). Opposing them will be a trio of guards who know their games very well in Josh Degrenier (12.3), Simeon Hodgson (11.7) and JP Record. Conant wants to slow down Mascenic’s backcourt and force players like Roman Ojala and Cooper Waryenen to carry the scoring load.
The Orioles advantage in this match-up has been their depth and in their ability to wear the Mascenic starters down. With Ford now sidelined that becomes a lot more difficult for Eric Saucier’s team.
Division IV
Colebrook Academy (7-6) at Profile (1-11)
We had a great weekend up in Colebrook (I’m here to comment only on what transpired during the game) and saw a great game as Groveton took control in the fourth quarter for the win.
Packed house, the parents of Sedrick McKinnon sponsoring our coverage on the eve of his scoring his 1,000th career point, two Hall of Fame coaches, a 15 foot tall Mohawk Indian on the wall and McIsaac losing a duck toss to a bunch of 8 year olds. It’s one of the best environments we cover a game in front of and that’s why we do this. Not because the kids are going to the NBA (although Wenyen Gabriel might..) but because the kids now have the ability to watch the entire game with play by play and the post-game interviews 20 years from now. Their parents might even watch the games after they go off to school.
That’s why we drive three hours each way to Colebrook or Groveton or even Woodsville.
As for Buddy Trask’s team, Lisbon head coach and part time color analyst Sam Natti hit it on the head when he watched Colebrook get out hustled on the defensive end for the first time all game in the 4th quarter. He said “Colebrook is cooked. They’re exhausted,” and he was right.
Groveton head coach Mark Collins rotated nine players and if Corey Gadwah and Daegan Lurvey might have been exhausted by the end his frontcourt wasn’t and that was the difference.
Colebrook knows what they are getting out of McKinnon every night (18.2 ppg. against every defense designed to stop him) and Jose Alvarado has been a huge addition with his ability to play the point and allow McKinnon to play off of it.
The entire Alvarado (a player I like a lot) experience can be summed up in one sequence at the end of a close win over Pittsburg-Canaan Monday night. Alvarado set up Michael Hastings for an easy score that put Colebrook up late. He then proceeded to turn it over on two straight possessions; double dribbling and then traveling. Followed by him breaking Pittsburg’s press with the dribble and rifling a perfect pass for a basket with 16 seconds left that made it a two possession game . Followed by him then fouling a Canaan-Pittsburg guard 40 feet from the basket four seconds later that stopped the clock and sent them to the line..
That right there sums up why Buddy Trask can’t figure out whether to hug him or strangle him every four minutes or so. Colebrook won by 3 by the way and Alvarado was a big reason why.
Paul Greenlaw’s Profile team is taking their lumps as a very young team with a good nucleus. Dylan Robie, River Baker and Jordan Brusseau are learning on the fly under Greenlaw and even that trial by fire process was made more difficult when leading scorer Reed Weekes missed several games with an injury.
For Colebrook it is about securing a Top 8 seed and to do that this is a game they have to have.
The New Hampshire High School Hoop Show is on ESPN NH radio (900AM in the Nashua area & 1250AM around Manchester) every Saturday morning from 9 to 11am. Pete Tarrier & I give you the scores of every game in the state from Friday night and breakdown all four divisions. Our guests Saturday will be Conant head coach Eric Saucier and Woodsville head coach Jamie Walker. We will also have our weekly call with Justin McIsaac that usually straddles the line between thought provoking & absurdity.
If you are outside the ESPN NH "listening area" you can hear the show by simply clicking on one of the NH HS Basketball Show links on our website OR on the Tune In or ESPN Radio apps, both of which can be downloaded for free.
Three weeks remain in the regular season for Division III & IV and on Friday night we will be out at a pair of big Division III games with the Top 8 seeds still very much up in the air.
Pete Tarrier and The Great Jon Kesty will be out at Mascenic when the Vikings take on arch rival Conant while Jennifer Chick and I will be out at Kearsarge when Nate Camp’s team takes on Franklin.
Our coverage will continue Saturday night when Lebanon travels to Manchester West for a huge Division II showdown.
We want to thank the parents who come to NHsportspage regularly and decided they wanted to support all of our efforts with a donation on our page.
On behalf of our entire team we want to thank:
Bobby & Terry McKinnon of Colebrook for supporting the coverage of their son Sedrick.
The Noordsij family for supporting the coverage of their son Trent of Kearsarge Regional
Stacie Caron for supporting the coverage of her son Keenan Caron of Manchester West.
Sean Young and Epping Basketball.
Each is listed on our page of donators and will be listed again on our two year end highlight videos (we are breaking up the highlights into regular season and tournament highlights)
We hope more parents will join them in becoming a part of NHsportspage by supporting the coverage we bring you every day.
Become a member of our team!
Division I
Salem (4-7) at Winnacunnet (7-4)
There were a lot of whispers going around about what was happening at Salem earlier this season so it’s time to give Rob McLaughlin & his players a lot of credit.
We’ve seen situations where players leave a team go in two very different directions and in January it looked like a Blue Devil team picked in the top 8 in the pre-season was going to fold up their tents and leave without a whimper.
It’s impossible to pinpoint where it all turned around. Some will point to the Concord loss as a wake-up call but Salem lost to Exeter by 23 points in the following game. One night later though Salem put it to Londonderry early in the first quarter and never let up in a 68-47 win. They followed that up with an overtime loss at Merrimack to a team that has not been beaten on their home floor all season.
A home win over Nashua South (struggling to win on the road) gave McLaughlin and his coaching staff the ability to convince the players that all was not lost. If ever there was a season where being the 13 seed really wasn’t that bad…this is it. Tim Dodier (8.1), DJ Coletti (10.5) and all-state center Matt Vartanian (14.4) have stepped up on both ends of the floor. In particular Salem is playing the kind of defense people expected and they have been led by a pair of very good guards Connor Greenfield & Jake Bosworth.
Friday night they play a Winnacunnet team battling through their toughest stretch of the season. Jay McKenna’s team has shown the ability to be elite defensively; in fact their win over Nashua South on Tuesday night moved them past Merrimack as the top ranked defense in the division. That sets up for a grind it out affair in Hampton Friday night.
Coming off of the Exeter game won’t be easy but with games against winless Pembroke and Alvirne at home next week the Warriors have a chance to move up the standings quickly. One game at a time…
Exeter (7-3) at Dover (2-9)
This one is the mother of all trap games for the Blue Hawks. It’s not going to be easy coming off of a huge rivalry game against Winnacunnet in a packed gymnasium to go back on the road for an area rival rested & waiting. Jeff Holmes’ team has a very tough schedule to finish the season (at Memorial, at Nashua North, Pinkerton & Spaulding at home and at Bedford to close) so they cannot afford a hiccup.
Mike Romps’ is going through a major rebuilding effort with a Dover program that was always in the mix for a Final Four berth before the talent started to seemingly evaporate the past few seasons. The Green Wave will play hard though and if it comes down to late game adjustments Romps is known as one of the best in the division. Don’t be surprised if this one is a lot closer than the records would indicate.
Division II
Lebanon (11-0) at Manchester West (10-1)
You get the sense Keith Matte’s team is really ready for this one.
The issue for the Big 3 in Division II is they have not been tested on a night to night…scratch that…a month to month basis. Kids want to be challenged and so do the coaches. It’s nice to go into a game every once and a while knowing you are going to win easily and wondering if Ollie from the end of the bench is going to throw in a three followed by the entire bench breaking up laughing, but it gets old when it is a season worth of that. It’s gotten real old for Portsmouth, Lebanon and Manchester West.
Portsmouth is 11-0 winning by an average score of 73-40 (it feels worse than that…the starters have forgotten what playing in the fourth quarter feels like). Lebanon is 11-0 and their average score is 63-34. For West…10-1..a two point loss coming to Portsmouth on opening night…69-42 is their average score. That isn’t fun for anyone but Ollie.
Lebanon got a scare from Hollis-Brookline (Mike Soucy is really building something over there..) and West similarly was tested by the social media giant that is Timberlane basketball. So it’s not like the kids don’t know how to execute in late game situations but this will be a legitimate 32 minute slugfest where the winner likely earns the 2 seed in the upcoming tournament.
If you’re West you want to dictate everything the Raiders have to do on defense. If you are Lebanon 6’8 Akok Akok has to be moved out of the post and if you front him you need weak side help. Keenan Caron at 6’4 can knock down shots from the foul line extended all day and he is the guy you absolutely have to put a body on when a shot goes up. A high/low with those two requires enough attention to open up driving lanes for Joe Simpson, Jacobee Burpee and Corey Descouteaux.
Everything should go through the post, when West starts standing around on the perimeter they become very one dimensional. Don't expect that to be the case Saturday night for Danny Bryson’s team.
Lebanon runs some very good sets on offense and no one keeps their head up looking for an opening better than KJ Matte. Expect him to be matched up with Joe Simpson in a battle of first team all-state guards. Burpee likely covers Ryan Milliken because they play the same style; small and quick as anyone on the floor. Austin Whaley likely covers Corey Descouteaux in a really good match-up. Whaley can get to the rim but is also a knockdown shooter where Descouteaux is excellent getting into the paint and creating but won’t force it from the outside.
These two teams played a down to the wire game last season that we covered up in Lebanon and you can expect the same Saturday night. If West settles for trading jump shots they are going to lose, if they force their way to the paint Lebanon is going to have to prove they can stop them.
Division III
Franklin (9-3) at Kearsarge Regional (11-2)
Franklin is a good basketball team that needs a signature win, and a victory at Kearsarge Friday night would certainly qualify.
At first glance this looks like a battle of big men when Franklin 6’7 center Dana Bean (14.8 ppg.) goes up against Kearsarge’s 6’8 center Zach Mattos but this is a game likely won in the backcourt. 6’7 Tayler Mattos (16.2) has missed the last six games with an ankle injury and recent history has showed that Bean can be slowed by big frontcourts (Gilford has done this in back to back seasons). It’s the guards who are going to decide this one.
Franklin head coach Rich Otis has a big time player in point guard Kenney Torres (19.7) who seemed to have flipped the ‘Wait a second we hardly ever lose when I score 30 points’ switch a few weeks ago. He has been terrific and on Friday night he opposes one of the best point guards in the division in Trent Noordsij (14.8). Opposing coaches rave about Noordsij for his basketball IQ and his ability to finish in the paint because of his size. Torres is much smaller and faster while Noordsij is bigger at 6’2 and considerably stronger. A one on one match-up may not evolve but both players have been given the keys to the offense by their head coaches and know how to execute in close games.
Nate Camp’s team has been given a huge lift by shooting guard Tom Johnson (15.9) and has been able to hold on to a Top 4 seed while Mattos recovers. Kearsarge needs to hold Torres in check and make someone else beat you on the perimeter while Franklin needs a big game down low by Bean to open up driving lanes for Torres and open looks for their guards.
Should be a good one Friday night in a game we will have full coverage of.
Conant (12-1) at Mascenic Regional (9-3)
Pete Tarrier returns to New Ipswich! (How many readers just said ‘So that’s where Mascenic is..’?)
The last time he was there AD Kevin Rines, Dutch Stauffeneker and Lynn Ladder/Vanguard Manufacturing had him higher above courtside than Johnny Most ever traveled, and on Friday night it’s another rivalry game with seeding on the line.
Conant wants to hold on to a Top 4 seed while all-state forward Brandon Ford recovers from a badly sprained ankle while Jason Starr’s team in trying to earn a top 8 seed and a home playoff game for a second straight year.
Two terrific backcourts square off in this one. Mascenic has been led offensively by their backcourt of Daimon Gibson (16.5) and Brett Stauffeneker (16.8). Opposing them will be a trio of guards who know their games very well in Josh Degrenier (12.3), Simeon Hodgson (11.7) and JP Record. Conant wants to slow down Mascenic’s backcourt and force players like Roman Ojala and Cooper Waryenen to carry the scoring load.
The Orioles advantage in this match-up has been their depth and in their ability to wear the Mascenic starters down. With Ford now sidelined that becomes a lot more difficult for Eric Saucier’s team.
Division IV
Colebrook Academy (7-6) at Profile (1-11)
We had a great weekend up in Colebrook (I’m here to comment only on what transpired during the game) and saw a great game as Groveton took control in the fourth quarter for the win.
Packed house, the parents of Sedrick McKinnon sponsoring our coverage on the eve of his scoring his 1,000th career point, two Hall of Fame coaches, a 15 foot tall Mohawk Indian on the wall and McIsaac losing a duck toss to a bunch of 8 year olds. It’s one of the best environments we cover a game in front of and that’s why we do this. Not because the kids are going to the NBA (although Wenyen Gabriel might..) but because the kids now have the ability to watch the entire game with play by play and the post-game interviews 20 years from now. Their parents might even watch the games after they go off to school.
That’s why we drive three hours each way to Colebrook or Groveton or even Woodsville.
As for Buddy Trask’s team, Lisbon head coach and part time color analyst Sam Natti hit it on the head when he watched Colebrook get out hustled on the defensive end for the first time all game in the 4th quarter. He said “Colebrook is cooked. They’re exhausted,” and he was right.
Groveton head coach Mark Collins rotated nine players and if Corey Gadwah and Daegan Lurvey might have been exhausted by the end his frontcourt wasn’t and that was the difference.
Colebrook knows what they are getting out of McKinnon every night (18.2 ppg. against every defense designed to stop him) and Jose Alvarado has been a huge addition with his ability to play the point and allow McKinnon to play off of it.
The entire Alvarado (a player I like a lot) experience can be summed up in one sequence at the end of a close win over Pittsburg-Canaan Monday night. Alvarado set up Michael Hastings for an easy score that put Colebrook up late. He then proceeded to turn it over on two straight possessions; double dribbling and then traveling. Followed by him breaking Pittsburg’s press with the dribble and rifling a perfect pass for a basket with 16 seconds left that made it a two possession game . Followed by him then fouling a Canaan-Pittsburg guard 40 feet from the basket four seconds later that stopped the clock and sent them to the line..
That right there sums up why Buddy Trask can’t figure out whether to hug him or strangle him every four minutes or so. Colebrook won by 3 by the way and Alvarado was a big reason why.
Paul Greenlaw’s Profile team is taking their lumps as a very young team with a good nucleus. Dylan Robie, River Baker and Jordan Brusseau are learning on the fly under Greenlaw and even that trial by fire process was made more difficult when leading scorer Reed Weekes missed several games with an injury.
For Colebrook it is about securing a Top 8 seed and to do that this is a game they have to have.
The New Hampshire High School Hoop Show is on ESPN NH radio (900AM in the Nashua area & 1250AM around Manchester) every Saturday morning from 9 to 11am. Pete Tarrier & I give you the scores of every game in the state from Friday night and breakdown all four divisions. Our guests Saturday will be Conant head coach Eric Saucier and Woodsville head coach Jamie Walker. We will also have our weekly call with Justin McIsaac that usually straddles the line between thought provoking & absurdity.
If you are outside the ESPN NH "listening area" you can hear the show by simply clicking on one of the NH HS Basketball Show links on our website OR on the Tune In or ESPN Radio apps, both of which can be downloaded for free.