The Farmington girls varsity basketball team improved to 2-3 on the young season with a 58-17 win over Mount Royal on Monday night in The Jungle on Ugly Sweater Night. Junior Makayla Lapanne led the Tigers with 12 points, while freshman Madi Ricker added 10. (Photos: Jillana Stevens)
The 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash at Farmington High School is New Hampshire’s largest holiday basketball tournament, so we’ve gone BIG with our broadcast teams for the boys and girls semifinals and finals productions.
Play-by-play man Jacob VanRyn, the Commissioner of the New England Collegiate Conference, will pilot the Ball 603 coverage alongside color analysts and former Granite State hoop stars Keith Friel and Aliza Simpson.
The name Friel is a household name in New Hampshire basketball and Keith will bring a wealth of experience and entertainment to our productions. A 1996 graduate of Oyster River High School in Durham, Friel led the Bobcats to two state championships and is the program’s all-time leading scorer with 2,148 points. Upon graduating from ORHS, Friel took his talents to South Bend, Ind. where he played for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame for two seasons before transferring to the ACC’s University of Virginia to finish out his collegiate career. While with the Cavaliers, Friel tri-captained nationally ranked UVA (#5) and graduated as the program’s all-time leading three-point shooter.
Friel continued his career professionally overseas and then with the Rochester RazorSharks of the Premier Basketball League. The 6’4″ guard played eight seasons with the RazorSharks, winning four PBL championships, two Playoff MVP honors and had his #13 retired back in 2016. He is the RazorSharks all-time leader in scoring, field goals, three-point field goals, free throws, free throw percentage and steals.
The Friel name is well known to New Hampshire basketball fans as Keith’s father, Gerry, was the head coach of the UNH Wildcats for 20 seasons and all four of Keith’s siblings also scored 1,000+ points at ORHS and later went on to play Division I basketball.
Simpson, a 2014 graduate of Londonderry, led the Lancers to the 2014 NHIAA Division I State Championship and was named New Hampshire Gatorade Player of the Year. The 5’9″ guard was a 1,000-point scorer at Londonderry before playing for the University of New Hampshire from 2014-2018.
While with the Wildcats, Simpson was a starter that helped UNH advance to the title game of the America East championship final and later a bid to the NIT.
VanRyn is no stranger to New Hampshire and New England sports fans as he has been on the NESN call for Southern New Hampshire University men’s and women’s basketball gamess for a handful of seasons as well as on Merrimack College, Bentley University and the Northeast Conference broadcasts to name a few.
All 45 games of The Bash will be streamed live on Ball603.com with productions by Pack Network getting bigger and better as the tournament progresses. Shows on the opening day of the tournament will feature basic one-camera productions with on-screen score, while the semifinals and final will feature multiple cameras, replays and graphics as well as VanRyn, Friel and Simpson on the call.
To learn more about the tournament, including brackets and schedules, log on to the official website of The Bash.
Ball 603 hits full throttle in the second full week of the season as we bring you coverage of an impressive 20 games… on a short holiday week! We’ve got eight girls games and 12 boys games on the docket. It’s all basketball, all the time and we couldn’t be more excited.
Check out where we’ll be…
Monday, December 20th
Mount Royal at Farmington, 5:30 pm
Mount Royal at Farmington, 5:30 pm (GIRLS)
Timberlane at Pinkerton, 6:30 pm
Tuesday, December 21st
Kearsarge at Campbell, 6:00 PM
Wednesday, December 22nd
Londonderry at Spaulding, 6:30 pm (GIRLS)
Exeter at Bedford, 7:00 pm
Thursday, December 23rd
Merrimack at Windham, 6:30 pm
Sunday, December 26th at The Bash
St. Thomas vs. Nute, 9:30 am
Inter-Lakes vs. Holy Family, 10:00 am (GIRLS)
Littleton vs. Inter-Lakes, 10:30 am (GIRLS)
Littleton vs. Holy Family, 11:00 am (GIRLS)
Holy Family vs. Profile, 10:45 am
Epping vs. Newmarket, 11:45 am
Kennett vs. Derryfield, 12:00 pm
Kennett vs. Epping, 1:15 pm (GIRLS)
Franklin vs. Raymond, 2:30 pm
Concord Christian vs. Franklin, 3:45 pm (GIRLS)
Concord Christian vs. Portsmouth Christian, 5:00 pm
Coe-Brown vs. Farmington, 6:15 pm (GIRLS)
Coe-Brown vs. Farmington, 7:30 pm
*Schedule subject to change*
Ball 603 has partnered with the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash to bring you live and free coverage of all games of New Hampshire’s largest and the Seacoast’s longest-running holiday basketball tournament. Farmington High School plays host to the 24-team boys and girls tournament that features an impressive 45 games over five days from Dec. 26-30.
Our coverage of The Bash will get bigger and better as the tournament progresses. Shows on the opening day of the tournament will feature basic one-camera productions with on-screen score, while the semifinals and final will feature multiple cameras, replays and graphics as well as some great announcers that will be announced later this week.
We will also be holding “Meet the Team” photo shoots with several teams in attendance and will have professional action photos of all games as well. The coverage of The Bash will be unprecedented for a New Hampshire high school sporting event and we guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
To learn more about the tournament, including brackets and schedules, log on to the official website of The Bash. You can also check out the 20-page tournament program that we also designed for the event, which features tournament notes, history, records, rosters and more.
Enjoy the show!
It’s time to introduce our Tropical Smoothie Cafe “Smooth Moves of the Week.”
Tropical Smoothie Cafe was born on a beach where people know how to live. We like things fun and playful, sunny and bright. Shake your shoes off and turn the music up. It’s time to unwind… with the Tropical Smoothie Cafe “Smooth Moves of the Week”. With locations in Rochester, Portsmouth, Portland and Biddeford, you’re on Tropic Time now.
This week’s Smooth Moves features plays from Bishop Brady, Bishop Guertin, Concord Christian Academy, Goffstown, Manchester West, Oyster River, Sanborn, St. Thomas, Trinity and Winnacunnet.
TROPICAL SMOOTHIE CAFE LOCATIONS
Rochester
127 Marketplace Blvd
Rochester, NH 03867
Portsmouth
1600 Woodbury Avenue
Portsmouth, NH 03801
Portland
45 Western Ave
South Portland, ME 04106
Biddeford
426 Alfred Street
Biddeford, ME 04005
It was the Isaac Jarvis show on Friday night as the senior forward poured in a game-high 27 points, including four throw downs, to pace Concord Christian to a 63-45 win at Farmington. You don’t want to miss these highlights…
Portsmouth girls beat Exeter in D-I hoop action, 51-37, led by Avery Romps with 17 points. Emma Smith paced Exeter with 12 points. (Photo Credit: Mike Whaley)
Senior Isaac Jarvis poured in a game-high 27 points to lead visiting Concord Christian to a 63-45 victory over Farmington Friday Night. Jarvis threw down four dunks in emphatic fashion and knocked down a pair of triples as well. The Kingsmen looked like the team to beat in Division IV as they improved to 2-0 on the young season.
It’s time for our first installment of The Peach Basket where we throw it back to old school photos of New Hampshire basketball. Check out who we feature this week…
• Pinkerton Academy head coach Dave Chase went into the way-back machine to pull out a couple photos from his hay day back in Vermont from 1980 and also shared some special images from his time at Hopkinton.
• Brewster Academy assistant coach Josh Lee of Farmington continues to pass the rock as he sent along photos of the state’s all-time leading scorer (Dave Burrows) from the 1990 Class S State Champion Nute Rams and his 2,000-point scoring brother, Tim Lee, who is alongside NHBCO Hall of Fame coach and Josh’s dad, Mike Lee.
• The Farmington Booster Club also shared some images from the town’s first-ever state championship team, the 1970 boys squad that featured tri-captains Dan Reynolds, Paul Moulton & Alan “Mouse” Hagar.
Thanks to everyone that submitted photos. If your photo didn’t run this week, it will in a future installment of The Peach Back.
Be sure to knock the dust off your old photos, scan them in or take a pic of them with your phone and email us at TBT@ball603.com. Help us celebrate the history of New Hampshire basketball.
Now onto the photos…
Second-year head coach Leon Shaw and the Somersworth Hilltoppers are 1-1 on the young season and are coming off a 78-60 win over Raymond. The Hilltoppers now host three-straight at home with games versus Winnisquam (Dec. 17), Berlin (Dec. 20) and Prospect Mountain (Dec. 22). Let’s take a minute to meet Coach Shaw’s squad…
| NUMBER | NAME | CLASS | POSITION |
| 0 | Aiden Hefferon | JR | G |
| 1 | Ray Holland | SR | G |
| 2 | Jeff Dekorne | JR | F |
| 3 | Dominic Starr | JR | G |
| 4 | Frankie Paradis-Collins | FR | G |
| 5 | Alex Brown | FR | G |
| 8 | Cameron Brown | FR | G |
| 10 | Zephen Yoder | JR | G |
| 11 | Logan Forrest | JR | F |
| 13 | Dezmyn Sheppard | SR | G |
| 23 | Logan Perreault | SO | F |
| 33 | Thomas Reese | FR | G |
