Welcome to the first full high school sports week of 2025.

And since it’s January, you know what that means: Basketball and plenty of it, beginning tonight.

The place to be tonight may be Alvirne High School’s Steckevicz Gym with an old fashioned girls-boys doubleheader between the Broncos and Nashua South.

The Alvirne girls fell to Pinkerton the other night while South lost at Keene, so something will have to give. Meanwhile, it’s a big test in the boys game for both the Broncos and Panthers, because Alvirne (3-1) is coming off a great defensive effort in which it held a high flying Pinkerton team to just 37 points. South, meanwhile, at 3-1 is stinging from an overtime loss to Keene. It will be a showcase of two of the area’s top players in Panther Josh Caruso and Bronco Sammy DeWitt.

The Nashua North boys (1-3), coming off a big win at Bishop Guertin the other night, host Concord while Guertin (1-3) will be at Trinity (1-3). In both cases, flip-flop the home court for the girls; it will be the 1-2 BG girls’ home opener, as a matter of fact.

In Division II, a couple of local contenders have long trips; the Souhegan boys (3-1) are at Hanover (3-1) while the Milford girls (2-1) are at Lebanon (3-1).

There’s a plethora of other local games as well, check your fav school’s athletic website.

AWARD FOR BG GIRLS SOCCER

The Cardinals girls soccer team won the 2024 United Soccer Coaches High School Fall Team Ethics and Sportsmanship Award, the only NHIAA Division I soccer team, boys or girls, to receive the award.

Fifty-three fall season boys and girls teams received either the Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze award, “which recognizes teams that exhibit fair play, sporting behavior and adherene to the laws of the game, as reflected by the number of yellow caution cards or red ejection cards the are shown by the referees throughout the season.”

The organization takes the number of cards a team receives divided by the number games played for an award category. For example, five cards in 20 games (0.25) gets you a Silver Award, which is what the Cardinals qualified for.

“I continue to be impressed by this group,” Cards head coach Chris Millett said.

The Pelham girls (Gold) and Fall Mountain Regional girls (Platinum) were the other NHIAA teams earning designations.

NORTH SWIMMERS COMPETE

The North boys finished fifth overall in a Sunday meet aided by divers Dawson Bolton and David Preston, who were one-two.

Other boys top performances included the 200 medley relay team’s fourth place finish (Ale Paquin, Tom White, Jack White, Lue Frenette) while freshman Jack White was third in the 100 butterfly and 500 free, and Griffin Reilly took third in the 100 breast.

On the girls side, Anya Seo had a first in the 500 free and seventh in the 50 free. Divers Kaylee Hall (third) and Savanna Basford (sixth) also did well.

NASHUA GYMNASTS DO WELL; SOUTH SECOND

The Panthers were second behind winner Goffstown with a team score of 112.80 in a meet at Holderness.

Senior Katie Perry and sophomore Nina Somorrostro performed well as All-Arounds; Perry had her second highest score of the season at 31.550. Senior Ryenne Georgianna also had her best meet of the season, with her highest scores on vault and floor.

North gymnasts, competing as independents, also did well. Ashlynn Hall had a .300 improvement on vault while also competing on floor; Lynnlee Davis competed on balance beam and floor with her best scores of the season, a .900 improvement on floor from a meet two weeks ago and .700 improvement from last week.

“Now that we are halfway through our season, we have a good grasp on areas that we can work on fine-tuning to continue our individual gymnast and team success,” Panthers coach Nicole Hembrow said, noting that vault and floor are right now the team’s strongest events.