Members of the 1983 BG Class L boys basketball team from left Mike Garland, Rob Prunier, Tim Root, Geoff Parkinson, Steve Piwowarski and Craig Heisner celebrate their reunion Friday night at the Colligadome during halftime of the Cards' game with Merrimack. (Courtesy photo).

NASHUA — “War of the City,” was what then-Telegraph sportswriter Sandy Bucknam dubbed the 1983 Class L boys basketball championship, a game that took place four decades ago and completely shifted the landscape and culture of Bishop Guertin athletics.

During Friday night’s regular season game against Merrimack in BG’s home court, six members of BG’s first ever Division I basketball title stood center court to a warm applause of fans old and young to be honored and remembered as the pinnacle culture shift in the school’s athletics.

Not only did Guertin take down Nashua High School in a crosstown rivalry final-which was the first sold out affair in the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm gym in six years, the Cardinals dominated throughout the entire season, breaking their regular season (17-1) and overall record (23-1) swimmingly on their path to enshrinement.

“Those games were insane,” said Craig Heisner, a junior on the team. “Every one of our games were sold out. One game we played at Merrimack, an entire busload of kids from West High School came just to cheer against us.”

There was far from a shortage of talent on the young roster, including three-time state player of the year Skip Barry. A future Boston College starter, Barry averaged 23.1 points up to the championship game and put together a double-double performance (24 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks) to secure the championship. Ed McCabe (14.7 points) and Chris Powell (12.9 points), the senior co-captains of the team, complemented Barry for a plethora of scoring for the Cardinals.

While the records alone prove BG’s dominance, the path towards a state championship was far from easy. The team’s roster consisted of nine juniors and two seniors, a young team navigated by head coach Tyler Page.

Along the way, BG had an infamous contest against Pinkerton with a total of three technical fouls, 55 fouls, six foul-outs, and a “mass shoving match” described by The Telegraph. Their 11th straight win, capped off by a 36-point performance from Barry, lit the fire for the Cardinal’s hot streak. They would win the next six straight and their first two playoff matches by 21 and 17 points, margins that proved their dominance while narrowly taking down NHS 56-50 in the championship.

“You couldn’t really describe the amount of spirit that was in the school,” said Tim Root, a starter on the championship roster and BG Hall of Fame member. “Everybody was involved, it was very supportive.”

The home crowd was so supportive that tickets were raffled off to students to get a glimpse of the sold-out atmosphere. An all-boys school at the time, the team had the school’s first male cheerleaders along with other spirited events throughout the games.

“If you weren’t on the court playing, you were having just as much fun watching these knuckleheads,” said Class of ’85 player Steve Piwowarski.

Skip Barry, shown in a Telegraph photo, was the driving force behind BG’s 1983 state title team. (Photo by Dan Aulbach)

The 1983 Cardinals took Nashua and the state by storm, kickstarting Division I championships for BG across all athletics. Several of the team’s players advanced to collegiate basketball careers while leaving a long-lasting impact on the school for decades to come.

“There’s so much history in the school, and quite frankly, we haven’t done a good enough job of celebrating it,” said Heisner. “This is a galvanizing thing even 40 years later…it’s really important for the school. It’s just a chance to bring everybody together.”

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