The Bishop Guertin Cardinals celebrate their Divison I boys basketball championship on Saturday night in Durham. (Photo by Hector Longo)

DURHAM — Bodies flew, bones rattled off the hardwood, the basketball squirted elusively loose to the point of unattainable, all the while the guys in Green played with championship poise amid the late fourth-quarter hoop calamity.

Seniors do that.

Under the most intense heat of the Division I State Championship game here at Oyster River High School, Bishop Guertin played hard, fast and loose and thrived because of it, knocking off Winnacunnet High School, 42-35, to win the Cardinals’ first boys hoop title since 2011.

“Winnacunnet came out so hard, they played a great game,” said Cardinals senior John Sullivan. “They (applied) all the pressure in the world in the fourth quarter, and we were able to beat it. All the credit to them applying all that pressure. We were able to recognize and react to it.”

Guertin took the lead for good, late in the second quarter with a 7-0 pre-halftime blast, then bravely withstood every challenge the Warriors could muster.

The courage was epic.

“They relished the moment. They were ready for it. They really wanted it. I thought they handled it great,” said Guertin coach John Fisher. “That’s when you use seniors. They really relished the moment.”

In a match where points were at a premium tied at 13-13, Dylan Santosuosso opened the second-quarter flurry with a corner three, his second of the quarter.

A defensive stop was followed by a pair of Javari Ellison, and for the second time in three playoff wins, Guertin hit intermission an absolute high when sophomore Matt Santosuosso’s stickback sent the teams to the locker room at 20-13.

Bidding for its first state title since 1992, Winnacunnet just kept punching, right to the very end.

But each time Guertin was put in a position to buckle, a Cardinal had an answer.

Midway through the third, the margin was sliced to two at 23-21. After a momentum-squelching timeout, Nate Kane buried a monster trey.

Early in the fourth, with the lead at one (26-25), it was clutch classmate Sullivan’s turn.

The 6-foot-2 guard planted himself on the post and delivered two straight strong buckets to push it back to 30-25.

“It was about recognizing a mismatch, but credit my brothers on this BG team,” said Sullivan. “They just fight so hard.”

Finally it was both Santosuosso boys with baskets to finally put Winnacunnet away.

Kane led the Cards with 11 points on the night, and Dylan Santosuosso added 12. Sullivan pitched in eight, and Jordan Robichaud had seven.

On the defensive end, it was a matter of every Cardinal pitching in on Brett Marelli and Sam Andreottola as BG big man Lucas Baker labored in foul trouble all night long.

Sullivan, Ellison, Kane, Robichaud and Baker, when on the floor, simply smothered the Warrior pair, which finished with a combined 24 points.

“We knew they were a bigger team coming in. We did a ton of game-planning for them.

We knew we had to counter their size with a full-court press,” said Kane. “We definitely controlled the boards this game, even though they were the bigger team. We got the shots we wanted, and shots were falling.”

Winnacunnet also punished itself repeatedly from the free throw line, hitting only 10 of 24 (42 percent) while Guertin was an efficient 10 of 13.

“They did a great job making us play defense. We were trying not to foul them. We were just fortunate,” said Fisher.

CHAMPIONSHIP DRIVEN

Win or lose, game or practice, the Guertin squad, complete with nine seniors, was a driven bunch, focused on the bold assertion that they indeed had the stuff to be a champion.

“I came over for academics (from Nashua North), but this was definitely in my mind,” said Kane. “They had a great b-ball team. Since I came over, we’ve had the championship mentality since Day 1 in the summer. And coach really drilled it into us, early on in the year.”

TITLES ARE TITLES

The aura of playing before a huge crowd on the big floor at UNH’s Lundholm Gym clearly played no impacting role on this championship Guertin team.

There was nothing but elation when the final buzzer sounded on Saturday night at Oyster River.

“It feels like its UNH, no difference,” Kane noted.

His coach concurred.

“The game is for the kids, here, UNH, anywhere we could play,” said Fisher. “It didn’t matter it was here. Look at what a great job Oyster River did. Total class. I’ll come back here any day.”

Newsletter