Brad Kreick basically had a message for his team and local fans on Sunday as he was putting on his coat and getting ready to leave the Manchester Memorial High School gym after a solid 66-45 win.

“If we can just continue to get better defensively, even beyond what we did today, I like our chances in March,” the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball coach said. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to win, but I think we’ll be very competitive in March.”

And now it’s time for Kreick and his Cardinals and everybody else locally with contending thoughts to put their eyes toward March.

We’ve had some local individual (example, Alvirne diver Skyler Bomba) and team champions (BG boys swimming, Souhegan girls track)already, so the question is for the next month or so, is there any more hardware out there?

We now forge ahead with wrestling (watch out for Guertin in division II) and boys and girls hockey, boys and girls basketball.

When it came to Divsion I hoop and hockey a year ago, the Cardinals were the focus. The girls hoop team won the Division I crown, and boys hockey made the semis.

Ironically, they won’t be the favorites going into this year’s Division I tournament, but that’s OK.

There could be a couple of other hoop chances. Right now, you’d have to say the area basketball hotbed is at Hollis Brookline. The Cavalier boys and girls have collectively lost just three regular season games. They’ve come back even stronger from last year’s deep tourney runs, when the HB boys lost in the Division II semis and Bob Murphy’s girls team fought their way into the finals as a six seed before losing to Lebanon. HB has big hopes going into late February, early March. Should be interesting.

Elsewhere? Well, if you’re talking Division I, you have to include the 9-4 Alvirne boys, despite going winless in their last two games, with one of the best players around in Max Bonney-Lyles. And then right in nearby Litchfield are the Campbell boys, at 11-3 in Division III.

In between Hollis and the Hudson-Litchfield area…well, not much other than the Cardinal girls as far as the Nashua city limits go. Locally, none of the four Nashua High School North-South basketball teams are above .500, and the Bishop Guertin boys are competing but still struggling at 1-12. Ouch.

It’s a long winter, and even longer for some teams.

Especiall in hockey, where the focus is, yep, Bishop Guertin. We saw one of the more dramatic victories by any local team this season when the Cardinal boys rallied from a 3-1 deficit after one period to beat longtime rival Concord,4-3, in overtime before a lively crowd at Skate 3. Friday night hockey, for a change, and it was fairly memorable.

Other than that, it’s been another dreary winter on the ice for the rest of the local boys teams. However, this year it looks like both the Bishop Guertin and Souhegan girls hockey teams should be tourney bound. The Sabers got their eighth win on Sunday over Kingswood and the Cards were literally shooting for No. 9 on Sunday night. Can either one beat Hanover? Doubtful, although it will take a performance like Saber goalie Makayla Lachance, who hd 64 saves in a 2-0 loss to the Marauders on Super Bowl Sunday.

In any event, let the Hardware Hunt continute.

Tom King can be reached at 594-1251, tking@nashuatelegraph.com., or @Telegraph_TomK.

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