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Guertin’s intensity from the start too much for Panthers

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Mar 6, 2021

Nashua South's Julianna Martin loses the handle trying to maneuver between BG's Olivia Murray, left, and Kailee McDonald during BG's 66-33 Division I prelim win Friday night at the Colligadome. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – They’d been wondering for almost a year how their young players would react to the atmosphere of a state tournament game.

“Now we know,” Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball coach Brad Kreick said. “And we got the answer that I wanted, which is great.”

Of course he did, after the sophomore-laden Cards jumped out to a 15-2 first quarter lead, led 40-10 at the half, and polished up a 66-33 Division I prelim/regional semifinal win over city rival Nashua South Friday night at the Colligadome.

It was over early. The Cards (14-0) held the Panthers without a point until Aryanna Murray hit a layup with 39 seconds left in the opening period. Guertin’s press, transition play, and even its outside shooting made a huge difference.

And as a result, the Cards in the quarters will now face another Nashua team, Nashua North, which beat Keene in the other prelim. Game time Sunday at the Colligadome is 5 p.m.

And you can bet Kreick & Co. will be looking for the same intensity.

“We didn’t have a great practice yesterday,” said Kailee McDonald, who led the Cards with 12 points while Meghan Stack added 10. “We just said we’ve got to keep this up and we’ve got to stay focused. When we came into this game today, we knew what we had to do, what our job was.”

“I can’t tell you how pleased we are, for such a young team, coming out and playing the way they did,” Kreick said. “We had only three turnovers in the first half. They executed really, really well. They played like upperclassmen tonight.”

And that was bad news for the Panthers and their group of talented seniors, who saw their careers end 10 nights after they held BG to its lowest point total of the year in a 49-32 Cards win that was competitive for three quarters.

However, that was at the Belanger Gym, a bigger floor than the Colligadome, which South coach John Bourgeois feared would aid an already ferocious Cardinals full court press.

“It’s definitely a different atmosphere,” Bourgeois said. “It’s like the saying goes, you have a plan until you get punched in the face. Once you get out there in a playoff situation against a great BG team and it’s a small court with full pressure, we definitely were deer in the headlights.”

“That was our best defensive half of the year so far,” Kreick said. “That’s as good as we’ve been start to finish in a half.”

It was a different type of season for South, which didn’t open thanks to a pandemic pause until just under a month ago. But they won a tourney game and persevered until last night with a core group of four-year players.

“I would give all the credit to the seniors,” Bourgeois said. “They had quite the four years of basketball with different coaches (three in four years) and in the fourth year they got a global pandemic.

“But fighting through adversity and being role models for the program is everything, and that’s why we succeeded in the games we had, because of the seniors.”

One of those seniors, Iruka Obinelo, led the Panthers with 13 points, their only double figure scorer. Julianna Martin added five. Guertin, which led 55-17 after three, also got nine each from Brooke Paquette and Mazie Barker. Sophomores galore.

“We’ve been waiting all year long to kind of see when they would turn that corner,” Kreick said. “And hopefully tonight was the night. And if so, we’re looking forward to Sunday.”

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