Trinith's Connor Cote drives just past Guertin's Andre Steinbrueck (15) duringTuesday night's Division I clash at the Colligadome. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – The energy level was through the roof.

Unfortunately for the Bishop Guertin High School boys basketball team, so was the early lead it built up on the Trinity Pioneers on Tuesday night at the Colligadome, vanishing into the cold night air.

Up 20-9 early in the second quarter, looking like they were going to run the Pioneers out of the gym, the Cards simply suffered a reversal of fortune as Trinity pulled away for a 71-57 win.

The game was closer than the final score indicated but that’s of little solace to the Cards who fell to 2-3 while former Daniel Webster star Ray Farmer’s Trinity squad is now 3-2.

“A lot of our easy looks, we look back at it, we had a lot of looks within five, six feet that didn’t fall for us and they were momentum killers,” Guertin coach Will Horne said. “They’d get the rebound, go in transition, and obviously we let Xander get hot.”

As in senior guard Xander McBournie, who hit six 3-pointers – all of them daggers – for a game high 24 points. Once he got hot for 13 points in the second quarter, things never seemed the same for BG as its early suffocating defense had way too much territory to cover.

Farmer, in his third year at Trinity, talked with McBournie a while ago to tell him he had faith in his shooting.

“I’ve been growing as a coach and just building my relationships with my players and trying to understand them better,” Farmer said. “What I notice with Xander sometimes you’ve got to give a certain kid a leash and a little bit of confidence. He takes some tough ones, and he makes some tough ones too. I told him ‘You’ll have freedom, as long as you play hard for me.’

“And he’s done a great job with that. Building that confidence with him, the last two games he’s been phenomenal, shooting the ball at a higher clip for us.”

“They needed that 3-point shooting to open up our defense,” Horne said. “Once they got that, they started to get in the driving lanes.

“Things we worked on in practice. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to tighten it up. This is a tough schedule. It’s not easy for us.”

The Pioneers got going to grab a 33-32 halftime lead. Guertin got a 36-33 lead with Connor McGowan hitting a layup and two Sam Woodward free throws, but after that the Pioneers and McBournie took with a 13-4 run that eventually gave them a 51-46 lead after three.

Guertin hung around with four and six points, and at one juncture in the fourth was down four with a chance to cut things to two and turned it over. A 6-0 Pioneer run got the lead to 65-55 with inside of a minute to play.

“We were down 20-9, we took a time out and our guys said ‘Let’s just dig in,'” Farmer said. “And when they did it, I was so proud. At halftime I told them I don’t care if we win or lose, but this is the win, gentlemen. Coming together in times of adversity, that’s our culture.”

Trinity’s Connor Bishop (4) tries to get a shot over the reach of Bishop Guertin’s Eli Youssef during Tuesday’s night’s game at BG. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

The Cards got 19 points from Connor McGowan and 10 from Eli Youssef, but McGowan couldn’t get on the kind of roll he was on this past Friday vs. North and Youssef was held scoreless in the second half. Luca Fabrizio added nine and Woodward eight. For Trinity, guard Jamar Gregory Alleyne had 12.

These are the kinds of games the Cards need to win to get to that next level they’re seeking.

“We’ve got to keep working,” Horne said. “We know we’re not going to win a playoff game in early January. Just got to get back to it.”