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One more look: Championship Cougars

By Staff | Mar 10, 2014

If one could have preserved the long locker room corridor in the basement of the Icenter in the final hour of Saturday night, you would have corralled the emotions of the Division I state tournament.

On one end, you had the disappointment of Salem High School coach Mark McGinn, talking to a reporter about the disappointment of being a one-and-done No. 2 seed. And, as members of the Pinkerton Academy staff walked out of the area, they were met with a hero’s welcome of applause after their shutout win over the Devils.

You had members of the Londonderry Lancers smiling and shaking hands in the hallway.

And then, down at the end, there was the Bishop Guertin coaching staff, disappointed that a great regular season push to the playoffs ended up in despair. Players remained huddled in the dressing room.

“It’s a great bunch of young kids that came a long way,” Cardinals coach Gary Bishop said after his sixth seeded, 8-9-2 team’s 4-3 loss to the No. 3, 15-4 Lancers. “We lost 4-3 to a team that was the preseason pick of a lot of people.

“We had a great run. The kids played well, they played well tonight. They fought hard.”

The Cardinals had one bad lapse,and it cost them. They were deadlocked with Londonderry 2-2 after two periods, but the Lancers scored two goals in the first 1:49 of the third and held off a furious Guertin rally to advance to Wednesday’s semifinals against their arch rival Astros at Manchester’s JFK Coliseum. Manchester Central and No. 1 St. Thomas meet in the other semi.

The two teams totaled just seven shots in the second period, so it was obvious they both would be looking to change that.

“We had the same plan, they just got to it first,”Bishop said. “We were saying the same thing in the locker room. Just shoot, shoot, shoot from anywhere and everywhere.”

But Londonderry senior Curtis Harper got off the first big shot and connected, with an assist from Mark Leach and Mike Donlan, just 55 seconds into the period. Some 54 seconds later, Lancer Nick Donnelly had the same idea, and his shot deflected off a Cardinal past BG goalie Griffin Scanlon, who otherwise had a good night with 12 stops.

“That second goal deflected off one of our guys,” Bishop said. “We didn’t get enough shots on net.”

No doubt, as Guertin (8-9-2) had nine shots in a 1-1 first period, but only nine the rest of the way. But it was Londonderry’s aggressiveness to start the third that was the difference.

Lancers coach Peter Bedford had seen his team blow a 2-0 lead vs. Guertin just 10 days earlier, mainly by not putting the puck on net. He didn’t want to see it happen again.

“Obviously BG made us work the entire game,” Bedford said. “In the back of our minds, it being 2-2 after two, I reminded these guys they allowed them to come back the last time, but I think I’m out of generosity.”

Londonderry led 1-0 5:11 into the game on a goal by Lucas Poulin (assist to Eric Coburn). Guertin’s Jason Lutcza’s fine bullrush to the net with just 58.3 ticks left in the first period tied things at 1.

Guertin then took a 2-1 lead on Max McCabe’s shot right out of the penalty box at 5:46 (assists to Tim Trudel and Connor Donahue). But the Lancers’ hulk of a captain, Coburn, tied it at 9:55 on a hard wrister Scanlon really never saw.

Down 4-2, Guertin made it extremely interesting when John Krapian scored at 13:33 of the third with the Cardinal net empty to make it 4-3. But the Cards, who went on a 6-0-1 to finish the regular season and grab the sixth seed, couldn’t get another shot off.

It was an interesting setup at the Icenter. Salem and Pinkerton played on the posh main floor, bigger ice surface with plenty of fan seating, about 15 minutes ahead of the other same bracket quarterfinal between the Cards and Lancers. That game was played downstairs on the smaller rink with barely no stands as most fans stood against the glass.

Ironically, those close quarters may have helped sink BG, neutralizing the young Cardinals’ speed. “Clearly,” Bishop said. “We were hoping to get the Olympic size. All of our guys were smaller. We had little more foot speed, but doesn’t help in this rink.

“We were awful in January, great in February.”

But 0-for-1 in the March, the month you can’t afford to lose even once.

North rally wasn’t enough

There was no strategy or special play that was going to help the Nashua North boys hockey team after the first period of Saturday’s Division I quarterfinal against St. Thomas.

Down 3-0 after 15 minutes – and 4-0 early in the second – the No. 8 Titans were going to have to find something, anything, within themselves to turn the game around.

North did, getting three quick goals from Jake Latham in the second period before Joseph Paige tied it 4-4 midway through the third. But with 4:34 left in overtime, and the Titans down a man, Ty Turgeon netted the game-winner to give the No. 1 Saints a 5-4 victory at the Dover Ice Arena.

Through 20 minutes, it looked like St. Thomas was going to cruise into the final four, getting three goals from Glenn Wiswell, the last of which made it 4-0 with 10:15 still to play in the second period.

“I just stressed to them that they needed to find in their soul what makes them move and they needed to play for a reason,” North coach Dan Legro said of what went on in between periods. “It didn’t have to be for me, it didn’t have to be for the guy next to them or the love of the sport.

“They could play for a parent, a friend, a girl, another sport, whatever they want, I didn’t care at that point. All we needed to do was find what motivated them and made them move. They needed to find a reason to fight.”

With the Saints in control, Latham got North on the board just 1:06 after Wiswell’s third tally, and in a span of 3:33, the Titans captain had cut the deficit to one, 4-3.

On the other end, goalie Jake Genest (31 saves) regrouped and kept it a one-goal game heading into the third with a couple of key saves at the end of the period.

“He’s a true captain and he puts a lot of weight on his shoulders,” Legro said of Latham. “A lot of times, he does that, he takes the game over, but he’s not the only one. Our goalie, after he saw us rally, he rallied himself and he made some saves that kept us in it.”

Cavaliers downed at the buzzer

The sixth-seeded Hollis Brookline boys basketball team was seconds away from overtime in Saturday’s Division II quarterfinal against No. 3 Lebanon.

With the game tied at 51 and the Raiders with the ball, Kalin Sou’s 3-point attempt from the corner with about five seconds left was off the mark. HB’s Shea Whalen and Lebanon’s Gage Young went for the rebound, but knocked it into the hands of Lebanon’s Dominick Morrill, who threw the ball at the basket while falling down.

And it was from the ground where he watched it loop around the rim and fall through, giving Lebanon a 53-51 win and a semifinal date with No. 2 Portsmouth on Wednesday. That game is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the University of New Hampshire, while No. 4 Pelham and No. 1 Pembroke will meet in the other semi at 8 p.m.

Cole Gallant led the Cavs (14-6) with 12 points while Whalen and Daniel Bentall each added 11. HB’s biggest lead of the game was six points, 21-15 in the first half, and the Cavs were up four at halftime. The game had three lead changes and five ties in the fourth quarter alone.

Campbell dispa tches Cinderella to reach semis

The fifth-seeded Campbell boys basketball team will return to the Division III final four for the second year in a row after beating No. 13 Raymond 69-54 Saturday night.

The Cougars (17-3) took control of the game early, jumping out to a 22-10 lead after one quarter and were up 31-18 at halftime. Zach Bergeon led Campbell with 33 points while Kyle Shaw added 14 points and Andrew Smarse had eight. The Cougars also outrebounded the Rams 35-30.

Campbell will face No. 1 Hopkinton in the semifinal Thursday at 8 p.m. at Southern New Hampshire University. No. 3 Berlin and No. 2 Conant will play in the other semifinal at 6.

Staff Writer Joe Marchilena also contributed to this report.

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