Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertin's Meghan Stack (51) looks to get off a shot against LaSalle's Malena Corso (24) and Kelly Gallagher during the Cards' 64-53 season opening win in Nashua on Saturday.

NASHUA – Like any good coach, Bishop Guertin girls basketball mentor Brad Kreick saw the ups and downs of Saturday’s season-opening 64-53 win over LaSalle Academy of Providence, R.I.

“What I told them (after the game), was, ‘Look, some good news and some bad news,'” Kreick said. “The bad news was there are three or four things that we didn’t do very well. The good news is every one of them is fixable.

“And we won the game. We’re 1-0, we beat a really good basketball team. That’s exactly why we play these games; they’re really good for us.”

The Rams, the defending Rhode Island state champions, made a late run, cutting what had been a constant Cardinal 15-20 point lead to nine in the final few minutes. Guertin took an early 10-7 lead and converted into a 20-9 advantage at the end of the first quarter.

They led 39-21 at the half, and it looked as if they would be in cruise control.

“They’re a great team,” LaSalle coach Lee Harris said. “Our girls were rattled from the beginning, and they pressured us really well.

“We talked at halftime about settling down, making some passes. … We were able to make some plays.”

The Cards got 17 points from senior Erin Carney and 13 from Hannah Muchemore. Addison Smith, who fouled out, and Bri Wilcox added nine apiece.

The Rams, who returned just two from that state title team, were paced by 20 from Kelly Gallagher and 14 from Aria DiNobile.

But as Kreick alluded and Harris confirmed, it wasn’t a runaway as a couple of things were amiss. One was the scoreboard, which ended up giving the Rams three points more than they really had as after a recount, the 64-56 displayed final was changed. Two, the Cards simply ran out of gas, and ended up giving up a total of 18 offensive rebounds and as Kreick said, “We got killed on the glass.”

“I think we had it going and we kind of lost the gas, and the hype at the end,” Wilcox said. “It’s not us right now. We’re going to get back in it on Monday, figure out the fundamentals and get back to it. … Today was kind of a wakeup call.”

Still, the Cards never trailed, and it was an opener after just a week-and-a-half of practice. Their early fast start can’t be discounted.

“It’s always a luxury when you’ve got five seniors that have collectively played about 250 games among the five of them,” Kreick said. “So that’s great.

“Then we were up 20, we got into a little bit of foul trouble and got out of our rhythm. In the second half, old and young, we didn’t execute very well. Against a good team like that, you give them chances to hang around, they’re going to hang around. We had just enough to kind of get out of here with a win against a good team.

“We have a tremendous amount of work to do.”

But an entire season ahead of them to do it in.

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