It’s going to be a different year, we think, in local high school basketball. Here’s a few things that are new:

First, you can give Bedford the favorite label in girls Division I basketball. It’s really a whole new era/beginning at Bishop Guertin under new coach Olivia Orlando. Along with the new coaching staff, it will be a completely brand new varsity team. Two keys who were eligible to return from last year, 6-2 Brooke Muller (she’d be a junior) and 5-11 senior Hannah Lynch didn’t come back to BG, going to Tilton Academy instead. So in a lot of ways there’s a whole new atmosphere around the Cards.

—– Congrats to new Hollis Brookline girls hoop coach Heidi Moore, who had been the Cavs JV coach until longtime varsity coach Bob Murphy stepped down. It will certainly be different without the colorful Murphy, who was, first of all, a great coach, and second, always fun to work with. Things change, and not seeing Murphy running the show on the bench after several years will definitely be a new look. We bet you miss it, Murph.

—- Talking about a new look, a Panther is now a Titan. Due to a move, former Nashua South guard Alize Roig-Cortes, now a junior, will now be playing for Nashua North after an off-season transfer over the summer. Always a sparkplug, he showed no fear as a Panther, shooting the 3-pointer and driving the lane. He’ll fit right in with the Titans, who certainly will have a new, but still highly competitive look after the nucleus of the two semifinal seasons has all graduated.

—- There won’t be the usual quadrupleheader for the Division I and II boys and girls hoop finals that we’ve seen the last two years at the Univiersity of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gym.

Now it will be split into two separate days, the girls with a doubleheader on Saturday, March 9 and the boys going with the I and II finals on Sunday, March 9. That theoretically takes away the need for a state basketball title game at 10 a.m. We say theoretically because at this early stage the times haven’t been set. But what it does do is cause a potential conflict with the hockey finals, also set for March 9 at SNHU Arena in Manchester.

Colby-Sawyer is again the home for Division IV and Keene State for Division III.

—- You want energy? Just watch both new BG coaches, Orlando and new boys basketball coach Will Horne. Horne was always competing with former coach John Fisher to see who would be most animated on the bench, and he was definitely full of fire at a recent practice yours truly saw. A head coach in waiting no longer, he’s a head man for good. And you should have seen Orlando at last Monday’s scrimmage against Moore’s Cavaliers. She eats and breathes the game, you could tell.

—- Remember last year when the Cardinal girls had to stick around as their trip to a mega holiday tournament in Florida was cancelled thanks to the Southwest Airlines fiasco. Well, no flight needed as they’ll be competing in a tourney that Hollis Brookline will hosting. Meanwhile, just down the road, the Nashua Holiday Tournament with the boys and girls from both Nashua North, South, Souhegan and Milford will compete Wednesday-Thursday Dec. 27-28.

— One non basketball change: Indoor track. The teams won’t be treking to Dartmouth College for their division championships in February. Instead they’ll be going to Plymouth State, which does host high school meets during the regualar season. Division II at 9:30 a.m.on a certain February Sunday and Division I at 4:30. The Sunday? Once again, it’s Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 11.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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