Courtesy photo New Merrimack girls basketball coach Bryan Duggan was a former Chelmsford HIgh School standout in the early 2000's.

MERRIMACK – Mirror image.

When Merrimack High School athletic director Mike Soucy was interviewing girls varsity basketball coaching candidate Bryan Duggan, he saw a lot of himself.

“We had very similar philosophies,” Soucy said. “He wants to build a program from the ground up. And he even has a similar demeanor to myself.”

Thus, meet the new Merrimack girls basketball coach – very similar to the former coach, who took the job for a year on an interim basis.

“It was interesting,” Duggan said. “During the interview I thought we kind of hit it off; we had the same style coaching. For me, with the 3-pointer revolutionizing the game, I’m big into position-less basketball, playing fast, pressing, man-to-man ‘D’, spreading the floor for kids who can shoot it.

“Less running stuff (plays) and more stuff for kids to create.”

And that’s excactly what the Tomahawks did under Soucy en route to a 16-2 regular season. Duggan caught a couple of their games on tape.

The ‘Hawks new mentor seems like a perfect fit. While his roots are in Chelmsford, Mass., he lives in town, is married to a former Merrimack athlete, and knows the area well.

Duggan had been coaching for nine years at his alma mater, Chelmsford High School, under longtime Lions coach Charlie Micol, who he said “was like a father to me.”

But the teacher in the Lowell school system wanted to embark on his own, and perhaps someday have that legacy like Micol has now.

“I kind of wanted something of my own,” Duggan said.

The first step toward getting that was a year ago, when he found out while playing golf with some relatives that the Tomahawks job was open. He didn’t see a posting but reached out, but the process was a little bit further along. Soucy was close to deciding to take the job himself for a year to settle things down after popular coach Courtney Cheetham decided to give up the job.

So when Soucy called Duggan this past spring to let him know the job was vacant again, he jumped at the chance.

“I just look forward to being the coach in the town that I live in,” Soucy said, “and kind of give back to the community and do a lot of things inside basketball but also in the town itself. I really enjoy living in Merrimack.”

Duggan graduated from Chelmsford in 2004, went to Fitchburg State but did not play there as he wanted to focus more on school. But that didn’t dampen his passion for the game.

“I just have a passion for basketball,” Duggan said. “I love playing it, love coaching it. It’s something that drives me; I love the competitiveness of it.”

After he graduated from college, Micol offered him the job as the Lions freshmen coach and he worked his way up the last 15 years to be a varsity assistant.

But this isn’t Duggan’s first foray into coaching girls. He coached JV girls soccer at Greater Lowell Tech for four years and worked a K thru 8 co-ed youth basketball program in Chelmsford.

“The bottom line is basketball is basketball,” Duggan said. “I treat it like I am as a teacher. I’m going to come prepared, teach the girls with high expectations, and with that, they’re going to appreciate the work I put in.”

“He compares Merrimack to Chelmsford in that “You’re not going to get just straight basketball kids; it’s very important to sprinkle in a couple of basketball kids but you really need those three-sport kids who are competitive and will raise the expectations during practice and games. Kids that just want to win and know how to win. I can see with this (Merrimack) program there are a lot of girls like that.”

Duggan says he is looking forward to his new job. He knows there have been some graduation losses but that, he says, goes with the territory.

And it’s his territory.

“It’s certainly a lot more work and I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “I was pretty hungry to get more of a role and have more of a say (in coaching).”

He has gotten some input from Micol and says he wants to get involved with the middle school level and the Merrimack Youth Association (MYA).

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Shock and sadness has hit Portsmouth High School and the entire city’s sports community as the city’s longtime recreation director, and PHS athletic director Rus Wilson died suddenly on Monday.

Wilson was extremely popular, having had the city rec job for 40 years and the AD job since 2005. The high school athletic program was in a tough state when he took over and now is competitive in just about every sport, even dominant in some.

Wilson was known as a fun-loving guy, dressing in outlandish suits and costumes at sporting events. “Rus was a true champion for the athletes at PHS,” said a tweet from the New Hampshire Athletic Directors Association.

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While new Bishop Guertin athletic director Ryan Brown has settled in, now after just about two months on the job, his former school has filled his position. St. Thomas of Dover has announced Emmaline Berg is its new athletic director. Berg is a Dartmouth College grad where she was a track and field standout (thrower) and at last look was an assistant track and field coach at the University of Vermont.