10 For 10: The top moments from a decade of covering high school sports

The exact number of games I’ve witnessed over the last 10 years covering high school sports is a big one.

If you told me it was over a thousand, I’d say definitely. The majority of those games have faded into the parts of my brain where things like high school geometry and the name of my first baseball coach have gone to be forgotten. We’d have to go digging through the archives to bring up any recollection for me.

But there are a handful of games that have stayed with me, memorable moments – and usually at playoff time – that one doesn’t as easily forget. This list contains the 10 best moments, in chronological order, I’ve witnessed covering New Hampshire high school for this website.

2010 Division I Football Semifinal

We’re going all the way back to the first football season on this site, the first and only time Nashua North and Nashua South have met for a football playoff game.

South had won the regular-season meeting, but North finished with a better record in the division and was the higher seed for the playoff game. Stellos Stadium was packed more than I’ve ever seen it. The stands were full and people lined the areas around the field, standing to watch the entire game. If I had to guess, the crowd was somewhere around three thousand.

As for the game, North running back Andre Williams rushed for 279 yards and five touchdowns to lead the Titans to a 49-35 win over South. After North took a 20-7 lead into halftime, the teams got into a shootout in the second half. It was one of the more entertaining high school football games I’ve witnessed, and with that type of crowd, it was a one-of-a-kind type of event.

2011 Division II Girls Basketball Championship

It was a rare championship game with two undefeated teams meeting when No. 1 Souhegan and No. 2 Lebanon squared off in the championship game. Both teams had suffered their fair share of disappointments leading up to this final, as the Raiders had lost their two previous trips to the title game and the Sabers hadn’t been there since 1995, despite being a perennial top five team in Class I/Division II.

Lebanon looked like it might run away with the title early, going up by 15 points in the first quarter, but with Jane White leading the way, Souhegan continued to battle. White scored 28 points, including a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left that gave the Sabers their first lead since early in the game, and two free throws to finish off a 47-44 win.

It was the first of back-to-back titles for White and the Sabers, as they knocked off Lebanon in the semifinals the following year before beating Kearsarge in the championship.

Morgan Andrews wins National Gatorade POY Award

Not all memorable moments come while at a game. In May of 2012, I received a “top secret” email from the Milford School District about an upcoming assembly to honor a high school student. It turned out to be a surprise visit from the people that handed out Gatorade’s National Player of the Year Awards.

Just a junior, Andrews had already won the New Hampshire Girls Soccer POY award twice, and was about to become the first Granite State athlete to win one of the national awards (she’d also win the award in 2013 and win Gatorade’s Female Athlete of the Year Award).

So on the morning of May 23, I found myself in an office at Milford High School with a handful of other media types, including someone from ESPN’s now-defunct high school website.

Gatorade got Ali Krieger, a member of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, to come in to present the award to Andrews during one of her classes. The surprise visit, and the assembly that followed were an exciting moment that I will definitely remember for a long, long time.

Souhegan boys basketball’s playoff run in 2013

OK, I guess this counts as a couple of moments, but put together, it is one of the most memorable stories of a team coming together around something greater than sports.

But first, some background. The 2012 version of the Sabers went 16-2 before coming up short in the D2 quarterfinals. With most of the team back for 2013, a similar run was expected, but at the end of the regular season, Souhegan was 12-6 and the seventh seed.

And then tragedy struck. The Saturday before the playoffs began, the players and coaches found out that Tony Barksdale, a 2012 graduate and member of the team, had died the night before. The Sabers rallied around the memory of their friend, and senior Brandon Len successfully petitioned the NHIAA to change his number to Barksdale’s No. 42.

Souhegan took out Hanover in the first round before doing what seemed impossible. After attending Barksdale’s wake the day before and a memorial service that morning, the Sabers went to Portsmouth and handed the Clippers a 69-65 defeat. It’s the only time since 2007 that Portsmouth hasn’t at least made the semifinals.

The Sabers moved on to beat Lebanon in the semifinals and gave top-seeded Pembroke all it could handle in the championship game.

First football finals held at UNH

For the first time, all of the NHIAA’s football championship games were held in the same location on the same day, allowing media people like myself to bring you coverage of all of them. OK, so maybe this is one that’s really more meaningful to me, but being able to spend a Saturday (or in some years a Sunday) watching some of the best football the Granite State has to offer is a real treat.

Campbell upset Newport in the Division III game to win its first championship while Windham and St. Thomas turned in the most exciting game of the day, with the Jaguars winning their first Division II title. In the Division I final, Pinkerton thumped Bedford to win its fifth title in 10 years.

First Bishop Guertin-Bedford boys lacrosse game

A regular-season game? Yup, a regular-season game, but this one had the feel of a playoff game to it.

Bishop Guertin had won five-straight Division I titles, while Bedford had just moved up after winning three Division II titles in a row. On top of that, the Bulldogs hadn’t lost a game since 2011 and their 72-game win streak was tied for the fourth longest in the nation.

The Cardinals broke open a close game late, going on to win 14-5, in a contest that had such pregame hype, the stands at Bedford looked more like a crowd for a football game rather than a mid-May lacrosse game.

2016 Division I Boys Basketball Championship

I couldn’t tell you what exactly happened over the first 35 minutes and 50 seconds of this overtime championship game without looking it up. What I do remember is the way the game between Manchester Central and Merrimack finished.

Down four points in the final seconds of overtime, Merrimack’s Andrew Wojciak hit a 3-pointer that seemed to defy logic, hitting the rim and bouncing straight up before falling through the net. It was a two-point game after Central’s Jaylen Leroy hit one of two free throws at the other end, when the shot that wasn’t a shot took place.

Merrimack had 6.8 seconds to get down the floor, but with time running out, the ball popped free from the hands of Zak Kerr. It ended up in the hands of teammate Noah Beygelman, who was in the game for the first time to give the Tomahawks an extra shooter, and his 3-point attempt hit nothing but net.

But the officials ruled the shot left Beygelman’s hand after the buzzer sounded. For a moment, both teams celebrated, but it was Central that held on for a 60-58 victory.

2018 Division II Girls Basketball Championship

Playing in the title game for the second year in a row, Hollis Brookline headed into the game as the favorite against No. 13 John Stark, but after going up by 16 points, the Cavaliers found themselves trailing late in the third quarter.

The teams battled early in the fourth quarter before HB was able to pull away late for a 54-43 win, giving the program its first championship. It was also the first title for Cavs coach Bob Murphy, who before reaching the title game with HB the year before, had never been to a championship game as head coach of HB, and before that, Merrimack.

I started covering sports for The Cabinet Press in the fall of 2005, before starting this site, and of the six high schools I covered then – Milford, Souhegan, Wilton-Lyndeborough, Merrimack, Hollis Brookline and Manchester West – Murphy is only one of three basketball coaches still around from that first year. He’s always been great to work with and getting to see him celebrate a title is a moment more than worthy of this list.

2018 Division I Boys Lacrosse Championship

This was the sixth of what has been seven straight meetings between Pinkerton and Bishop Guertin in the Division I title game, but it was the first time the Cardinals entered the game with a chance to finish the season undefeated. Bishop Guertin had rolled through its schedule, playing just two games that were decided by fewer than five goals – a three-goal win over Boston College High and a two-goal victory at Pinkerton during the regular season.

As I was watching the teams warming up, another Division I coach asked what I thought it would take for the Astros to win the game. I listed off a half dozen things, all of which I felt had to happen for the upset to take place … and it did.

Pinkerton controlled faceoffs, got out to an early lead, going up 6-2 at halftime, and the Astros limited Bishop Guertin to its lowest offensive output of the season in the 11-9 win.

2019 Division III Girls Lacrosse Championship

You do this job long enough, you end up seeing things you’ve never seen before. Hopkinton came into the final against Derryfield undefeated, having beaten the Cougars in convincing fashion during the regular season.

But despite going up by as many as five goals, the Hawks found themselves in trouble after picking up five yellow cards. Hopkinton had to play all but 2:15 of the second half down two players, and in that time, Derryfield came back to take a one-goal lead.

Ellie Morrall scored twice in the final two minutes to put Hopkinton on top for a 12-11 win.

Did any of these moments make your list as well? Comment on here, or on Facebook or Twitter, to share your top moments from the last decade of high school sports.

Next week, I’ll have lists of the top 10 players and teams for boys lacrosse.