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END OF AN ERA: Kreick steps down as BG girls hoop coach

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Mar 23, 2023

Brad Kreick has decided to go out on top, stepping down as BG girls basketball coach nearly two weeks after BG won its sevent state title in his eight years at the helm. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The second most successful high school girls basketball era the area has seen – the success the late John Fagula began at the one Nashua High School remains the best – has come to an end.

The Bishop Guertin/Brad Kreick Era.

Kreick informed school officials as well as the Guertin community in an email late Wednesday that he was stepping down due to family and work commitments after an eight-year span that saw 167 wins and seven championships (one shared).

“It was a combination of things,” Kreick told The Telegraph. “When I took the job eight years ago, I kind of had an agreement with my family that I’d try to give it a five-year window.”

But, then COVID hit in 2020, and at the end of that season Kreick’s Cardinals never got to finish the tournament on the court, sharing a title with Goffstown as the two highest seeds remaining when the plug was pulled. Then Kreick wanted to see it through with the group of freshmen from that season that included players such as All-Staters Brooke Paquette and Meghan Stack.

“I just fell in love with that group of kids,” Kreick said. “I couldn’t get myself in a place where I wasn’t going to see it through with them until they graduate, which is obviously this year. That kind of drove my longevity.”

And Kreick and that group went out on top as the Cardinals finished 21-0 and beat Bedford for the Division I crown 10 days ago, their second straight championship game win over Bedford.

Kreick’s teams beat the Bulldogs four times in the finals, but Bedford handed the Kreick-coached Cards their only title game loss in 2021.

Guertin went 167-17 during his tenure, but 12 of those losses were against out-of-state teams. The Cards’ in-state record the last eight years was 142-5, with three of those losses coming to Bedford, two in the regular season. The other two were to Londonderry and Pinkerton.

Kreick said he didn’t officially make up his mind until this season’s state tournament. He confided to a few after the final buzzer sounded at Lundholm Gym back on March 12 that he was done, but took the last week to make sure and finalize his decision.

“It was something I talked to my family about through the course of the season,” Kreick said. “A lot of mixed feelings about it, like I’m sure there are for anybody that’s coached for awhile. But as the season went on and we got closer to the end of the season and the tournament was upon us, I sat down with my wife and it was the right time.”

Kreick said he could never have envisioned this much success.

“No,” he said with a chuckle. “It was sort of a dream experience for me personally. I had helped out as an assistant the year before I was fortunate enough to get the job, so it was not lost on me I was going to be inheriting a pretty talented core group of kids.

“I had a great foundation to build from with an already really established program, so I had a huge head start in that regard. But if you had said to me eight years ago that it would have gone the way it went, I would have told them they were crazy.”

Kreick made it clear that he didn’t turn a program from rags to riches, as the riches were already there. Guertin had been in four state finals from 2006-2013, winning it all in 2012.

But how did the program rise to an even higher level of success?

“I kind of boil it down to three things: First and by far the most important thing, we’ve just had unbelievable kids, all eight years,” Kreick said. “Kind of a crazy fortunate blend of really talented kids, great athletes, and unusually competitive groups. …

“The second thing is half of this job is staying out of the way as opposed as being in the way, and I’ve been blessed to be surrounded by great basketball people.” Kreick’s main assistants over the years included – among many others — Kyle Tave, Mike Paquette, Kristie Mullin and Michaela Zebrak (formerly Leary). He called them all “My partners from a coaching perspective. … Great people that have a lot of great basketball knowledge.”

And the third, Kreick said, was the administration at Guertin, which allowed him to play several out of state games, and travel out of the region from time to time. “They’ve just been great,” Kreick said. “Those three things, the kids, the coaches, and the administration.”

Kreick’s story is highly ironic. He was well known in the area as a hockey standout, a former star at the one Nashua High School who went on to play at Brown University and also a stint or two in the minor leagues. He got into girls basketball helping a friend’s youth team and just continued the progression. Guertin was his first head job. When he got it, he immediately consulted with Fagula – who coached him in JV baseball at Nashua. Thus it’s no wonder his program resembled in many ways the pressing style and success from those Panther teams of the 1980s and ’90s, and that success extended even to the early 2000’s under other coaches prior to the Split in 2004.

Another reason Kreick said was a factor in his departure was the corporate position he began in November of 2021 as CEO of SolutionHealth, which manages several hospitals in the region.

“Yeah, that was a factor,” Kreick said. “When I took the (BG) job, I was in a place professionally where I had the flexibility and the latitude and control of my schedule to do it. With my current job, it’s been a challenge. It wasn’t the only consideration but it was a consideration.”

And now what? Guertin will now have a major position to fill. As Kreick said, “I think it’s a great job.”

“I don’t think it caught us by surprise,” Guertin athletic director Ryan Brown said. “He’s got his new job and that sort of thing. He’s obviously accomplished things here that are special. Won a lot of basketball games with a lot of great kids here, and has meant a lot of things to the community as a whole.

“From that standpoint it will be tough shoes to fill. Moving forward we’re going to have to open up a search within the community and see who the next person is. We’ll start that process shortly; there’s not a specific timeline but it’s not going to last forever.”

Brown is confident the job will be filled by the end of the school year if not sooner, and expects a good pool of candidates.

“The program speaks for itself,” Brown said. “We’ve had a lot of success but we’ve also got a lot of young kids coming up that are going to be very good.”

Sources say it’s unlikely key figures on Kreick’s staff this year will want to take the job, mainly due to family reasons. But again, Kreick made it clear the key reason why he won 167 games as a coach:

“The kids, the kids, the kids,” he said. “They’re the core of everything the program accomplished by a country mile.”

And now the Brad Kreick Era at BG has reached the end of its highly successful road.

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