Bishop Brady boys basketball rolls past Goffstown in D2 semifinals

DURHAM – Jourdain Bell wasn’t worried about his nerves getting the best of him Wednesday night in the Division II boys basketball semifinals at the University of New Hampshire.

Why would they? The Bishop Brady High School senior was finally on the stage he’d wanted to be on for three years.

Bell and his teammates put on quite the show, as the No. 3 Giants got out to a big lead early and held off No. 10 Goffstown 61-47 to reach the championship game for the first time since 2001, where they will face No. 1 Portsmouth.

After losing in the first two rounds of the tournament the last two years, it was a moment to remember for Bishop Brady.

“I think we were nervous more in the first two games (of the playoffs),” Bell said. “It’s a relief. I’m looking forward to it, but I was nervous for the first two games, because those were the games we lost the last two years. Once we got past the first game, I thought we could do it. It’s exciting.”

Bell did a little bit of everything for the Giants (17-4), with 12 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Aaron Svendsen led the way with 18 points, all but two of which came in the first half, and Brendan Johnson had 14 points and nince points.

Joe Bell was also in double figures with 10 points and nine boards, as Bishop Brady outrebounded Goffstown (11-10) 39-26.

“We were able to get into transition a lot and one thing we did really well, we rebounded tremendously,” Bishop Brady coach Cole Etten said. “In order for us to run, we have to rebound, and when we took care of that, especially in the first half, we got a lot of transition looks. The big court, I’m not going to say it hurt us.

“Goffstown is a big team and they’ve got big guys out there, so rebounding is huge. We want to limit them to first chances.”

The Giants also limited Goffstown’s Marcus Haynes long enough to build up a 19-point lead in the first half. Haynes finished 21 points, but had just eight in the first half, with two 3s coming in the first quarter.

“Marcus Haynes is a good player,” Etten said. “In the first quarter, he was able to get some open looks and he hit them. They’re a tough matchup for us. We talked about our help. We didn’t want to help as much off of Marcus because all the looks he gets are from the 3-point line. We wanted to minimize opportunities for him.”

Bishop Brady led from start to finish, getting out to an 11-2 lead in the first quarter before Goffstown took a timeout. The Giants made it 15-2 before the two 3s by Haynes helped make it a 17-8 game after one.

The second was more of the same. After the Grizzlies cut the lead to 19-10, the Giants went on a 16-4 run to take a 21-point lead. A basket by Goffstown’s Casey Gervais with two seconds left in the half cut the lead back to 19, but Bishop Brady wasn’t done.

The Giants opened the third quarter by going on a 12-4 run to take their largest lead of the game 47-20. Goffstown got the lead down to 17 points going into the fourth quarter, thanks to a 12-2 run of its own.

But the Giants were able to get the lead back up to 24 points with 5:06 left in the game when they started to take the foot off the gas.

“The second half, our intensity changed a little bit,” Etten said. “We need to be able to finish games because whoever we play in the finals, we can’t have lags in the second half.”

Bishop Brady will get a rematch with Portsmouth, which defeated the Giants on a buzzer-beater in overtime during the regular season.