Bishop Guertin girls basketball wins battle of unbeatens against Merrimack

NASHUA – A close-to-capacity crowd stuck around the Collignon Gymnasium Friday night to see a matchup of the two teams at the top of the Division I standings.

The Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team didn’t disappoint its home crowd.

While the Cardinals started slow on offense, the defense was locked, holding Merrimack scoreless for long stretches throughout the game on the way to a 63-23 win over the Tomahawks.

Erin Carney led the way for Bishop Guertin (13-0) with 19 points while Addison Smith and Brianna Wilcox were also in double figures with 13 and 12 points, respectively. Hannah Muchemore also had eight points and Meghan Stack chipped in with seven, while the Cardinals’ defense forced 25 turnovers, including 10 in the first quarter.

“What I was pleased with was that I thought we were really, really solid defensively,” Bishop Guertin coach Brad Kreick said. “That’s a really good basketball team and we held them to 23 (points) and turned them over a bunch of times. The kids were locked in and made a commitment to the defensive end from the opening tip and it showed.”

Merrimack (12-1) got six points each from Makenna Desfosses (two 3-pointers) and Riley Crampton, as the Tomahawks were held to more than 27 points below their average for the season.

Full-court pressure and man-to-man defense have been a staple for Merrimack all season, but the Tomahawks opened the game sitting back in a zone against Bishop Guertin, something that coach Mike Soucy might have hurt his team more than helped.

“We weren’t who we’ve been all year and that’s a mistake on my part that hopefully we won’t make again,” he said. “We’ve got to stick to our identity and compete the way we always have. I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different, but I think we would have given ourselves a better chance.”

The zone seemed to slow Bishop Guertin some in the halfcourt in the first quarter, but the Cardinals were able to score in transition thanks to their rebounding on the defensive end and Merrimack’s turnovers.

“They do a really good job of getting out in transition and they do a really good job on the backboards,” Soucy said. “If you can control those two parts of the game, it’s a big hill to climb. They are really disciplined, they are well-coached, they put a lot of pressure on you. That’s all there. We do the same thing to teams, so it’s not something we haven’t seen before, it’s that they do it consistently for 32 minutes and most teams aren’t able to do that.”

Bishop Guertin got to a 10-0 lead midway through the opening quarter before a jumper by Samantha Page put the Tomahawks on the board. Crampton added a pair of free throws and a basket before the end of the quarter, but the Cardinals held an 18-6 lead after one.

Merrimack would go scoreless for nearly four minutes again to start the second, as Bishop Guertin went on a 10-0 run to increase the lead to 22 points. Two more free throws from Crampton made it 28-8, but the Cardinals scored nine straight points to go up by 29 points before the Tomahawks closed the gap to 24 going into halftime.

Desfosses hit a 3 to open the second half, making it 37-16, and although the Cardinals would score just eight points in the quarter, Merrimack went almost seven minutes without a point to trail 45-18 going into the fourth.

“I told them we struggled offensively in the first few minutes of the third quarter, teams are going to do that,” Kreick said. You can’t always control the offensive side of the floor. If the kids stay committed to the defensive side of the floor, the rest of it will be what it will be.”