Category: Jam Session

Lofty expectations: No bar is too high for Ava Winterburn

By Mike Whaley

Ava Winterburn sets her bar high because that’s who she is. The Goffstown High School basketball star expects more from herself, not less.

“I always told people I wanted to be in the NBA when I was little,” she said with a laugh. When people told her there were no women in the NBA, she’d respond: “I know, but I want to be the first.”

That’s how Ava Winterburn rolls.

Led by Winterburn, Goffstown entered the Division I tournament Tuesday as the No. 4 seed. The Grizzlies improved to 16-3 with a big second half to claim a convincing 58-30 win over No. 13 Salem, paced by Winterburn’s 25 points and 19 from junior guard Maggie Sasso. Goffstown will host No. 5 Pinkerton in the quarterfinals on Friday.

It’s been quite a journey for Winterburn, a senior 6-foot-1 forward/guard, who will attend Southern New Hampshire University on scholarship. A four-year member of the Goffstown varsity, she has grown into one of the best players in the state. A returning first-team all-state player, Winterburn leads D-I in scoring, averaging 26 points per game.

Winterburn growth and maturity has been evident this season to her coach, Steve Largy. “It’s been fun to watch,” he said. “I get to go back and relive how she’s progressed and developed. She’s had a lot of the tools in the bag for a long, long time. She’s developed so much mentally and emotionally. She’s leading the break. She’s leading us in rebounds. She has an extremely high motor in practice. When you combine that level of skill that she’s developed in her work in the off-season and during the season, it’s pretty amazing.”

Watching Winterburn playing these days, one sees a 6-1 player with a great overall game. “One through four is where she can play,” Largy said. “And she can guard one through four. She’s a really big commodity at the college level.”

That wasn’t lost on SNHU coach Karen Pinkos when she recruited Winterburn. “What I love the most about her is that she’s basically a versatile player,” Pinkos said. “She can play inside, outside. She can handle the ball at her height. She can shoot the 3. She’s got a lot to her game.”

Winterburn’s maturity development was also something that resonated with Pinkos. She has known Winterburn since she was in grade school coming to SNHU summer camps, so she has seen the Goffstown player develop over time. “I went to see her play her junior year in high school,” Pinkos recalled. “She struggled a little bit with maturity in terms of getting frustrated and then fouling out all the time.”

When Pinkos saw Winterburn over the summer playing with her AAU team and HS squad, she could see a change. “I felt like she matured as a player, as a person. She just kept getting better,” said Pinkos, who believes Winterburn’s versatility could make her a special player in SNHU’s league – the Northeast-10 Conference.

This has been a breakout year for Winterburn, who has been good in previous years. This year, however, she has embraced all facets of her game, improved on defense (a necessity in college) and become an even better team player, and thus a much better overall player.

The Grizzlies success comes from the trust Winterburn has for her teammates, a very good group that includes classmates Ava Vaughan, Ava Ruggiero and Caroline Foreman, Sasso, and Winterburn’s sophomore sister, Meredith.

In past years, Winterburn felt compelled to check out the scorebook after games to see how many points she had scored. This year, there has been far less of that.

Late in the season she had a string of 20-plus games including back-to-back 41-point games. “It came naturally,” Largy said. “It’s not like she has to check the book after the game. It’s very organic. It’s very few shots. It’s happening in context of the flow of the offense or she’s getting rebounds or loose balls. She’s constantly up there in rebounds and assists. People are impressed with the score lines, but if you’re watching it happen, it’s way more impressive because it’s happening the right way.”

Winterburn can see the change. “This year I’m more comfortable on the floor than I’ve ever felt,” she said. “I think I’ve come with the mentality that I know my points are going to come. What else do I have to do to pull out a win?”

She recalls her second 41-point game, a win over Londonderry. She played the whole game. When the team manager told Winterburn that she had scored 41 points, she was surprised. “I wasn’t even thinking about it,” she said. “I just wanted to win the game. It was a pretty tight game until the end. That was my entire focus. That just shows how much I have grown since my underclassman years.”

It’s been a process with plenty of growing pains. In her first year, Winterburn was the only freshman on a team with nine seniors. Largy could see she was going to be good. Still, she didn’t play very much, which did not sit well with her. 

“Honestly, it sucked,” Winterburn said. “I’ve never been a kid who sat on the bench.”

She recalls going home and crying because at one stretch she sat three games in a row. “Now, looking back on it, I wasn’t ready mentally,” she said. “I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I really learned my place. That experience with so many seniors, I got to figure out the right way to do it. It was a long, long lesson.”

As frustrating as her freshman season was, Winterburn did get a chance to shine. In the first round playoff game against Portsmouth, she came off the bench to score nine points to spark a 44-32 win. 

“I probably wasn’t expecting to go in,” she said. “Once I stepped on the court it was like ‘OK, how do I not go back to the bench? Because I don’t want to sit on the bench again.’”

It was a big boost for the freshman. “Being a big part of the playoff game, I think it said something about my persistence,” Winterburn recalled. “It wasn’t like I just sat on the bench and said ‘Whoa, I’m just a bench player.’ Here I am. I continued to work for it. I wanted minutes and when I finally got them, I showed why I deserved them.”

No. 6 Goffstown advanced to the quarters, upsetting No. 3 Manchester Memorial, 53-50. Next up was the semifinals against No. 10 Londonderry, but it never happened. The tournament was canceled due to Covid-19. No. 1 Bishop Guertin was awarded the state championship.

What should have been an exciting moment turned painful. “They shut us down,” Largy said. “We didn’t get to get on a bus and go to that for the nine seniors, who were set to do that. It was extremely disruptive. A lot of them were robbed of that first experience to go play at a neutral site and do that whole tournament experience thing.”

It was a good learning experience for Winterburn. She didn’t like sitting on the bench, but that didn’t stop her from soaking up every scrap of knowledge she could. On bus rides, she sat up front with the coaches and talked basketball, seeking ways to improve her game. At games, she had a designated spot beside assistant coach Nate Bracy. “We were always talking about the game,” she said. “Bracy loves to talk basketball and so do I. During the game we’d be talking and I was always ready to go in because I was seeing the game and what we could do (to win).”

As bad as it was sitting, Winterburn made the best of it. “I wouldn’t say I was having a pity party for myself,” she said.

Things changed in a big way when she was a sophomore. The nine seniors were gone, and she quickly found herself cast as the team’s leader and leading scorer. It was a strange season because there were Covid protocols in place that hampered playing (wearing masks), reduced the schedule and generally wreaked havoc with the season.

“It feels like it didn’t exist,” Winterburn said. “I feel like I went from freshman to junior year.”

There was a shorter regional schedule that culminated with an open tournament. Goffstown hosted Trinity in the first round, a team they had beaten late in the season. The Pioneers rallied from a 15-point halftime deficit to pull off a 39-38 win, sparked by 26 points from senior Colby Guinta. She hit the game-winning 3-pointer with 16 seconds to play.

Winterburn remembers after the game coach Largy saying, “That’s a senior. That’s what you play like when you’re a senior. That’s your last shot.” It didn’t resonate as much with a bunch of sophomores as it did to a senior who was used to being in that position.

“It was painful at the time,” Largy said. “But you learn so much from it. They got it. They see the progression from sophomore year to last year, taking the next step in the playoffs and winning that first game.”

There was some frustration for Winterburn early in her junior season. Opposing teams were focusing on her. She suddenly found herself dealing with defenses designed to stop her – and some of it was working. In addition, she had this bad habit of worrying about how many points she had scored. “It was frustrating. (She kept asking herself) ‘how many points did I get? Did I have enough points? Is my average going to go up?’”

Winterburn pauses for a second. “If we’re being honest, sometimes I still think like that,” she said. “But last year it was pretty bad. It was in the back of my mind ‘how many points did I get?’” 

While she was navigating the scoring piece, she was also introducing guard skills to expand her game. Before she had been a back-to-the-basket player because she was the tallest kid. “That wasn’t going to work for long,” she said. “I had to develop guard skills and I really got to put them into play.”

About half way through the season, Winterburn experienced a change for the better. She talked about the frustration of being face guarded and scoring six points. While that wasn’t fun, Goffstown did win the game. “I think that brings everything full circle,” she said. “I have great teammates surrounding me and even if I’m not having my best game, we can still pull out a win. I think that was an important switch that flipped for me.”

Largy saw the change as well. “She really became not just rim focused,” he said. “She started to see the floor somewhere in that year. Now she’s able to pick out open teammates and kick to open shooters in the corner. She was using her teammates in a way she hadn’t before because she was attracting so much defensive attention.”

Looking back it was a humbling experience for Winterburn. “‘There’s no I in team,’ the classic saying,” she said. “I really started to figure that out. I started to become a more selfless player. I always knew I had the people surrounding me who were good. I love all of my teammates. But I feel like at the end of the day I just needed to have more trust in them.”

The Grizzlies ended up winning in the 2022 tournament first round over Alvirne, before losing in the quarterfinals to Bedford, a team they have never beaten. Bedford has always presented a mental challenge for Goffstown. As Winterburn noted, it’s a constant loop where Goffstown players hear that Bedford is so much better than Goffstown. “You always have that in the back of your mind whenever you play Bedford,” she said. “Everybody is always saying ‘we have Bedford. We’re going to lose.’”

The Bedford loss did not sit well with Winterburn, who ended up in tears. “I’ve never seen anyone take a loss as hard as she did last year,” Largy said. “The big part is how she responded. She took that one to heart and did everything in the offseason to prevent that from happening again.”

This has been a great season for Winterburn and the Grizzlies. She has cemented her college plans at SNHU, and recently eclipsed 1,000 career points – an impressive feat given how little she played as a freshman and Goffstown’s shortened Covid season during her sophomore year. The SNHU decision, as it turned out, was pretty easy. “SNHU is the first college that believed in me,” she said. “You have to believe in someone to give them money to go to school.”

Everything felt right about SNHU, which is currently 20-6 and playing in the NE-10 tournament semifinals on Thursday. “I felt I could see myself there,” Winterburn said. “The coaching staff really made me feel welcome and wanted.” She also wants to stay involved with the Goffstown program, with its coaches and players. She has sisters playing now, and she wants the Goffstown players to come to her games. “The pieces all fit,” she said. “I chose SNHU because I’m going to play great basketball and still be involved with the community.”

But, for now, Winterburn and her teammates will focus on the matter at hand – to go as deep as they can in the D-I tournament. Which, in this case, comes back to defense, an aspect of her game that has improved by leaps and bounds. “You want to be on offense as much as possible, so you better play good defense,” she said. “There’s another saying – ‘offense wins games, defense wins championships.’ I want a championship.”

Aiming High: Laconia boys looking to make history

By Mike Whaley

LACONIA – Kayden Roberts and Keaton Beck like the view from the top. They both know they’ll like it even better if they can be there on the podium accepting the Division II boys basketball state championship plaque on March 12 in Durham.

Roberts and Beck are the main guys for the Laconia High School team that is 17-1 and the top seed in the D-II tournament – a first for the Sachems. Their goal is to do something no other Laconia squad has done, which is to win a state title.

“We’ve dipped our toes in the water,” said Beck, a 6-foot-6 junior forward/center who is averaging 19.6 points per game. “Now it’s time to fully submerge. It’s like game mode.”

Laconia has for sure had a taste of the tournament. When Roberts was a freshman, the Sachems lost on the road at Hollis-Brookline in the final seconds. In 2021, a senior-dominated team with Roberts and Beck providing support advanced to the semis, losing to eventual champion, Lebanon, 58-46. Last year, they won a first-round playoff game over Coe-Brown before No. 1 Souhegan rolled over them in the quarters.

“We got a taste of it a couple years ago,” said Roberts, a 5-7 all-state scoring point guard (21.6 ppg). “Now we really want to be the last one standing and put a banner up for the first time.”

Indeed, while Laconia feels good about its basketball tradition, it doesn’t include a state title (boys or girls). The Sachem boys last made a championship appearance in 1978 (57-46 loss to Pembroke in Class I), one of just two in program history.

“To me, how do you define tradition?” asked coach Steve McDonough, who is in his 12th year as coach. “For me, I teach (mathematics) in the building as well. Just because we don’t have the tradition of being a final four or championship team, there is a lot of tradition of being a Sachem in Laconia. There’s a lot of alumni that are very invested; former coaches that are very invested in keeping tabs on where these kids are.

McDonough added: “Kayden scored his 1,000th point a couple of games ago – one of five Sachem players now in the history of Laconia High School. The amount of alumni that reached out is special – former coaches – even Red Charland who coached Jim Swormstedt to his 1,000 points in (1987). I do think there is tradition. I would say ‘yes’ we don’t have a long tradition of winning in basketball.”

Which is something Roberts, Beck and their Laconia teammates are working hard to change.

The D-II regular season wraps up this week with the tournament set to open on Tuesday with first-round games. Because the Sachems are one of the top two seeds, they will get a bye to the second round. They will host a quarterfinal game on March 3, possibly vs. the Merrimack Valley-Lebanon winner.

Laconia ended the season with some big wins, including a wild one-point victory over Pelham, an 84-67 win over a very good ConVal squad with the division’s leading scorer in Joe Gutwein, and then a gutsy 65-52 decision at Oyster River to sew up the top seed. “I told the guys yesterday when they got off the bus (after the OR win) you have until midnight tonight to be as pumped as you want,” coach McDonough said. “We just did something special. But come tomorrow that doesn’t matter anymore. Today is tomorrow.”

Roberts and Beck feel like the groundwork has been laid to get Laconia to the ultimate level. All the Sachems, for the most part, grew up playing together – from LAYBL (Lou Athanas Youth Basketball League) to middle school to high school.

Roberts highlights how important it was his sophomore year to experience the trip to the semifinals with an experienced group of seniors led by Logan Paronto and DeMarco McKissic, Beck’s older brother. “They showed us what it’s like to win and play at that high level,” Roberts said. 

Now Roberts and Beck wear the leadership mantle, and have worn it well as the Sachems have successfully navigated their regular season to earn the top seed. Along the way they have had some big wins over quality squads, including Manchester West, Coe-Brown, Pelham, ConVal, Kennett, and Lebanon. The one hiccup was a 50-42 loss at Souhegan on Jan. 6.

“That loss hurt us,” Roberts said. “Souhegan is a really tough team. They defend the ball really well and they’ve got a lot of guys who play really hard. They’ve got a deep team. As a program, I know we all feel the same way – we wish we could get that game back.”

“That game kind of shot us down a bit,” Beck said. “We are still looking to go higher; the ceiling isn’t high enough.”

Coach McDonough thinks the Sachems weren’t ready for Souhegan. “They’ve been there before and we haven’t,” he said. “It was a playoff atmosphere in their gym. … They jumped out early on us. We clawed back and had a three- or five-point lead with three minutes to go. Their composure and their experience got them the timely buckets they needed and we reverted to some bad habits. The ball stopped moving and we forced a few shots. The next thing we know we look up and we’re down five when we have to start playing the foul game down the stretch.”

Until Laconia can prove otherwise, McDonough feels Souhegan is the team to beat. “Peter (Pierce) does such a good job of having those kids dialed in and ready to execute in those tight situations,” McDonough said. “They’re the better team. We hope to have the opportunity (to see them in the postseason) because that would mean we’ve won some playoff games. If we’re going to see them again, it’ll be a tremendous test to see if these guys have learned what they need to learn and I’ve taught them what I need to teach. Hopefully I’m right in my assessment that they’ve played with a composure to execute down the stretch that you need when you get to these games.”

Kayden Roberts is at the head of what Laconia does because he is the point guard and a main scorer. He is expected to do a lot. McDonough said the senior’s game has evolved over time. He came in as a freshman, started for a bit, but settled into a role as a contributor off the bench. As a sophomore, he was the primary point guard, while last year he had to score more for a team that struggled on offense.

“This year I challenged him to take the game from last year and be 15-20 percent less selfish and get other guys involved,” McDonough said. “We have a lot of great athletes on this team. We have some good shooters and that will open the floor up for him and Keaton. I think he’s done a phenomenal job with that.”

McDonough has pushed Roberts harder than most of his players because the senior is motivated when you tell him he can’t do something. After his freshman year, McDonough told him he couldn’t shoot. Roberts came back as a sophomore and was the team’s best shooter. After his sophomore year, his coach told him he couldn’t defend. Roberts came back as a junior as a better defender.

“After last year I told him he couldn’t be a playmaker for other people and he couldn’t defend at an elite level and he’s come back this year and he’s probably the most well-rounded player that I’ve had in my time here,” the coach said. “It’s all a testament to instead of him taking what I was offering and looking for a way out, looking for motivation out of it. He’s motivated by those types of things. He wants to prove me wrong and I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

As for Beck, McDonough said, “he’s a double-double off the bus. … To me, Keaton is a dominant force as a big man. He’s a match-up nightmare for most teams in that he can run the floor. He’s athletic. If he needs to put the ball on the floor a little bit, he can. It’s really kind of impossible to body him up with just one body. He’s just massively strong. He rebounds the ball extremely well. He has hands around the hoop that are phenomenal. He does a great job of keeping his hands high and finishing high.”

Beck is referred to as a “cheat code” in practice by his teammates because there are some drills where it’s too easy to just throw the ball over the top to him.

“You get the combo of those two for us as captains and leaders, it’s special,” McDonough said.

It’s what has allowed Laconia to have success. Roberts and Beck know their roles and realize the value of their teammates. “We’ve got a lot of players like Carson Tucker, Rowan Jones, Sam Knowlton, Logan Sanchez,” Roberts said. “They’re all really good basketball players. They play well within our system. They know that me and Keaton are the main guys. They’re really good role players. They get us the ball when they need to. They can also hit the open shots and work the ball around when they need to.”

Junior Carson Tucker is another guard, who can play point to take pressure off Roberts. “He’s an absolutely tremendous all-around athlete,” coach McDonough said, referring to Tucker’s ability as an all-state lacrosse player, who has also played football and soccer. “He usually defends the toughest matchup on the other team. It may be a guard; he may defend a big wing. He can defend any position on the floor because of his strength.

McDonough calls Jones the team’s “Swiss Army Knife” because he doesn’t care about stats. “He cares about winning,” the coach said. “He just goes out there and makes those quality gutsy plays whether it’s taking a charge at an opportune time or getting on the floor for a loose ball to get the energy going.”

Knowlton is a 6-3 senior forward with, according to McDonough, phenomenal footwork and a good sense for the game. “He’s come into his own shooting the ball lately,” his coach said. “We have lots of opportunities for drives and kicks and post touches and kicks when you have players like Kayden and Keaton. He’s been capitalizing there. He’s just another tremendous senior leader for us. … He’s hungry to win and wants to push these guys.

Caden Tucker is a 6-2 sophomore forward and Carson’s younger brother. Off the bench he gives Laconia size and length, shoots the ball really well and has a great sense for the game, according to McDonough.

Sanchez, a 6-2 junior forward, is an all-state quarterback “who learned in football quickly to give the ball to Keaton and get out of the way,” McDonough said. “He does a good job of that in basketball. He plays really good defense for us and has great length around the basket.”

Finn Mousseau is a 5-9 senior, who is the combo guard off the bench if there is foul trouble. He rounds out the rotation of eight that see the lion’s share of the playing time.

Two sophomores who swing up from the JV team and will figure in next year’s conversation are Brady Stevens and Matt Robinson. Senior Alex Marcano is playing high school hoop for the first time. He has an enviable task in practice to challenge and toughen up Beck to make him better.

“It’s been a full-team effort all year,” McDonough said. “It will continue to be for us to have any chance of being successful.”

As for style of play, the Sachems play an uptempo game on offense that relies on what McDonough calls “pace and space.” It’s not necessarily running at all times, but it does rely on keeping the ball and the players moving to maximize flow and rhythm.

On defense, Laconia plays strictly man to man; mostly in the halfcourt, but they will go full court man if need be. “For us in defense, it’s really simple,” McDonough said. “We want to keep guys in front of us. We want to see both (our player and the ball).” 

The second season is here. Laconia is right where it wants to be, riding a 13-game winning streak into the tournament and playing its best basketball. 

Being the No. 1 seed is a program first. There is some belief that the 1955 Class L finalist team was a regional No. 1, but this is the first time that the Sachems are sitting atop the standings across the division going into the tournament.”

“That’s something to be proud of and I think the guys are pumped in all that entails in getting a home playoff game,” coach McDonough said. “I think they also know that that happened yesterday. And really the task at hand now is to go defend home court next Friday night. We now know that there’s a bigger bull’s eye on our back than there has been possibly forever. We relish that opportunity. We’re not going to take it lightly.”

Game ready! Banghart handles challenges at UNC, Princeton

By Mike Whaley

Although basketball has been a life-long passion for Courtney Banghart, she wasn’t always sure it would be her vocation.

Once she realized it could be, she grabbed on firmly with both hands. She has developed into one of the finest college basketball coaches in the nation.

The New Hampshire native is now in her fourth year resurrecting the scandal-plagued women’s team at the University of North Carolina. Banghart’s current UNC squad is 18-7 and ranked 19th in the two most recent national polls. Before UNC, she transformed Princeton University into a top Ivy League program. In 2015, after leading the Tigers to a 30-0 regular season, she was recognized as the Naismith National Coach of the Year. Between the two schools she has over 300 wins in 16 seasons.

But there was a time when Banghart felt soccer would be her sport in college and that her future was likely in the sciences or maybe as a school head.

Banghart grew up in rural Amherst, New Hampshire, a town of nearly 11,000 people located in the south central section of the state, somewhat between Manchester and Nashua. She attended Souhegan High School from 1992 to 1996 where she was one of the state’s most decorated three-sport athletes. She excelled in soccer, basketball and tennis, leading Souhegan teams to eight state championships in those three sports. Individually, she set the state record – that’s been since broken – for most career goals in soccer (147), eclipsed the 1,000-point mark in basketball, and in tennis captured a state singles title (1995) and two in doubles (1994, 1995).

University of North Carolina women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart confers with junior guard Deja Kelly. A native of New Hampshire, Banghart is in her fourth year at UNC. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

Banghart said she was lucky she was born in a state where at the time it was OK to play three sports. “We really specialize early now at this stage,” she said. “If I had had to specialize that early, it probably would have been soccer. I was more talented, more decorated, obviously.”

She added, “Athletics has been my thing. It’s what I’ve been best at. It’s what I’ve enjoyed the most. My first word was ‘ball’ not ‘mom’ or ‘dad’. That’s just been my life.”

Banghart said that when she went to Dartmouth College in the Ivy League because her dad was pretty sure that sports were not going to be in her future. She was heavily recruited for soccer, receiving offers from schools like Boston College and Notre Dame. She chose Dartmouth who was coached by current Virginia coach, Steve Swanson. Her feeling was that if soccer was going to pay her way, then that was the path she needed to take. But before she entered the Hanover school, Swanson took the job at Stanford. That left Banghart with two choices – follow Swanson to Stanford or stay as a Dartmouth recruit.

Well, actually there were three choices. Basketball was still her favorite sport and, frankly, Banghart was looking for any excuse to play it. She called the basketball coach.

Banghart hammers home her love for basketball. Yes, she was good at multiple sports, and she was best at soccer, but basketball was her passion. “My dad would always say, I’d finish a soccer game and have on my shin guards and go out and shoot hoops for an hour,” she said. “It was like a made-for-TV movie. I just loved hoop. I watched it. I used to watch the Celtics every Friday night. I just loved it. I still do.”

Growing up, Banghart did not get the exposure in basketball that you need to gain the attention of college coaches. “I didn’t do the whole AAU thing,” she said. “My parents weren’t financially prepared to spend that much money, They didn’t see the value in that.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart played basketball at Dartmouth College where she was a two-time All-Ivy League pick and led the Big Green to a pair of Ivy League championships. [Photo courtesy of Dartmouth College Athletics]

Serendipity came into play when Banghart decided to play college basketball. Then Dartmouth coach, Chris Wielgus, was actually familiar with her and knew she was a good player. She had seen Banghart play for Souhegan against Hanover High School in the 1996 Class I state final because at the time her son was dating one of the Hanover players. Banghart had a great game, scoring 30-plus points in a 60-57 win.

“She knew who I was because she watched me play in high school,” Banghart recalled. “It’s kind of weird and strange now in this day and age, but being from a small town, your exposure is different than being in a more urban environment.”

Banghart laughs about it now, but at the time she chose Dartmouth and soccer because her parents wanted her to go to an Ivy League school, and soccer was the ticket to help pay for that. “Even if Steve (Swanson) had stayed, I can guarantee I would have found myself over to the basketball team,” she said.

Banghart played four years for the Big Green, leading them to a pair of Ivy League titles and twice earning first-team All-Ivy honors. She owned the Ivy League record with 273 career 3-pointers until it was broken in 2019 by Harvard’s Katie Benzan (287). In 1999, she earned the Ed Seitz Award as the top 3-point specialist in the nation after connecting on a program-best 97 three-pointers.

It was during her first job at Episcopal High School, a boarding school, in Alexandria, Virginia, that Banghart realized that maybe sports could be a vocation. She was the school’s assistant athletic director and then girls’ AD while coaching tennis and basketball during a three-year stint.

Doing what she did at Episcopal was a grind. “I’m not afraid of the grind,” she said. “I’m wired that way. I also saw the income. It didn’t match the grind. I thought if I want to do this, I should probably do this at the college level.”

It still wasn’t necessarily coaching, but Banghart was definitely thinking about sports; maybe as an athletic director or something similar.

She applied to graduate schools, getting accepted at the Harvard School of Education. When she told her dad, he asked who was footing the bill. She went to Dartmouth instead because they paid for it. She got her master’s degree while working with the Dartmouth women’s basketball team as an assistant coach from 2003-07, which included a pair of Ivy League championships.

Courtney Banghart holds Dartmouth College’s record for career 3-pointers made with 273. [Photo courtesy of Dartmouth College Athletics]

Where Banghart is in her life as a coach may have come down to one week in 2007. She turned 29, defended her graduate thesis and was offered the head job at Princeton.

“I always say about (Princeton athletic director) Gary Walters, he saw it before I did,” Banghart said of that coaching break, one she did not expect. She recalls showing up for the interview with a single piece of paper. “Here, this is me,” she said. “I’m almost embarrassed about how I interviewed for that job. But he saw it in me before I did.”

So there it was. Banghart was 29 and a head coaching job was on the table. It wasn’t something she was necessarily seeking. “Honestly, it kind of happened more so than I had made a conscious decision that coaching was going to be my life,” she said. “Once I hit the ground running at Princeton, I found my thing, as they say.”

Without a doubt.

In her 12 years at Princeton, she led the team to a lengthy list of league and Princeton firsts and bests. They won seven Ivy League titles and made it to the NCAA tournament eight times. Before she arrived, the Tigers had never made the NCAA tournament, and only once in their previous eight seasons had they had a winning record.

“It’s all about people,” Banghart said. “The program I inherited, we play them twice every year in the Ivy League. At Dartmouth I played them eight times as a player and eight times as an assistant and went 16-0 against them. So I knew what I was getting myself into.”

There were good players in place when Banghart got there. Though they hadn’t had success, they could speak positively about the school and the new coach. “They really helped me to recruit the next group,” she said.

One thing Banghart found was that she was very good at recruiting. “There are two types of coaches in our line of work,” she said. “Those who can recruit and those who get fired. I knew that recruiting was going to be important. I really got lucky. I got a lot of talented kids those first few years and the rest took care of itself.”

Because she was good at recruiting, of course, didn’t mean it was easy. “I think in coaching because it’s a journey of people, you’re constantly making decisions,” Banghart said. “You’re talking about that from a recruiting space; everybody has strengths, weaknesses and holes. You kind of have to build your team where you connect the strengths and the holes are complementary. Maybe it’s just dumb luck that I’m good at it.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart has been a women’s college head basketball coach since 2007, the last four years at the University of North Carolina. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

But she feels she can actually pick up beyond scoring, rebounding and defending on people that she thinks are really talented. “That proved me well at Princeton because you’re splitting hairs a little bit,” Banghart said.

At North Carolina, of course, you’re trying to get All-Americans. “But it’s the same idea,” she said. “Who are the kids to be the ones to help you win a national championship? I don’t have a very good answer for that. My mom has asked me that many times. ‘How do you know so-and-so is going to be good?’ I watch closely. I do the whole circle of recruiting. I talk to everyone in their circle. I talk to them a lot. Then I trust my evaluation. When they get here, I coach the hell out of them.”

Banghart coached the hell out of her Princeton players for 12 years until she felt she was ready for a new challenge. “We were literally hammering everybody,” she said. “I think partly I was 39 or 40 and I thought there was one more challenge in me in this industry. It didn’t feel OK to me that I’d give this much of my life to women’s basketball and I’d spend all of it in the Ivy League. What’s the next challenge?”

At Princeton, she’d been spoiled. “Princeton has a world-wide brand,” she said. “You recruit nationally. It’s a beautiful campus. It’s a wonderful place to live.” Banghart had also started a family there with her wife, Michele DeJuliis.

She had all these “non-negotiables” trying to find the next place. “The list was very, very small,” Banghart said. “My decision kind of came to a place like Carolina, will it be available? Am I going to be able to get that job? Or am I going to try a totally different thing? I kind of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be an Ivy League coach that much longer.”

What happened next, Banghart will never forget. “I actually stepped down on a Thursday night, very, very late,” she recalled. “I got a call from (North Carolina athletic director) Bubba Cunningham Friday morning. Everything moved very quickly there.”

Then it became easier. “Because I had wrapped my head around the fact that there was going to be another challenge, I think that allowed some of the really hard things that come with moving and relocating your family to become less hard,” she said. “I knew there was going to be something else.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart has been a women’s college head basketball coach since 2007, the last four years at the University of North Carolina. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

Something else that was, indeed, a huge challenge. Banghart was taking over a North Carolina program with a rich tradition that had soured. The Tar Heels had won the 1994 NCAA national championship and been to the Final Four in 2006 and 2007 under Hall of Fame coach Sylvia Hatchell. But the recent history with Hatchell had regrettably deteriorated. There had been three consecutive losing seasons and then an 18-15 record in 2018-19 in which Hatchell ended up resigning under a cloud highlighted by accusations of racially insensitive remarks and forcing players to play while injured. Hatchell resigned on April 19, 2019. Banghart was officially hired before the end of the month on April 30.

In her first year, without the benefit of a recruiting season, Banghart came in and guided the team to a 16-14 record. That included a season-ending eight-game losing streak in a year that was canceled on the eve of the national tournament due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid affected her second year, as well, reducing the schedule to 22 games. The Heels went 13-11 overall, losing in both the first round of the ACC and NCAA tournaments. 

“It was really, really hard,” said Banghart coaching in those first two years, especially the second Covid season. “I’m very positive by nature. Looking back it was really hard. There were plenty of days I would ask myself ‘how long am I going to do this? What value is this?’”

She added: “Because you left something that you built fully functioning and you had to rebuild something that wasn’t fully functioning and needed a lot of changes. That is hard because that is peoples’ lives that you’re impacting. Of course, the league is really strong. Everything in this business is really finicky. If you don’t get a great class your first year, how do you get one your second year? You’re kind of wearing that all the time. It has to go well and it has to go well immediately. That’s stressful and hard.”

Banghart recalls at some point sitting in her car in her driveway and having a heart to heart with herself. “I’ve got to stop wanting to end here,” she told herself. “This isn’t helping anything. I’ve got to stop. You either finish what you started or if you don’t like it, do something else. I was at that point where I didn’t know if I liked doing this.”

Then it hit her that she had to cease asking for it to be easier. “You knew this was going to be hard,” she recalled telling herself. “That’s actually why you left Princeton. You wanted a new challenge. So now you ask your players every day to embrace challenges, and you’re disappointed that this is such a challenge. Stop. I was telling myself to grow up and see what it actually looks like.”

Her mind-set got better. That first class had arrived, so there was a talent influx. Some of the people who were there before moved on. “The people situation started to clean out and clean up,” Banghart said. “That was very helpful.”

The worm turned last year. UNC went 25-7 overall, winning two NCAA Tournament games before falling to eventual national champion South Carolina by eight points in the Sweet 16. The Heels were ranked 17th in the final AP poll.

This year, led by Banghart’s first recruiting class – now juniors – consisting of Deja Kelly, Anya Poole, Alyssa Ustby and Kennedy Todd-Williams, the Tar Heels are again nationally ranked.  “For a small-town New Hampshire kid, I won’t get tired of recognizing how hard that is,” Banghart said of being nationally ranked. “It’s hard to win at any level. We started the ACC season 0-3, but we also played three really good teams. We either had a small lead or it was tied or so in the fourth quarter. Those were all possession games. In coaching if you hang on every result defining you, you’re going to miss out on the journey. I felt the same then as I do now, I have a really good team. We just have to continue to get better, stay the course and you have to get some lucky breaks to get to a Final Four. We’re building to that, that we have a legitimate opportunity to do that every year with the talent we’ve been able to amass.”

It’s been a journey with this particular squad. “This team has matured, “ Banghart said. “At the time, I wished it had matured a little bit earlier. It wasn’t the organic nature of this group. We sort of had to go through some vulnerabilities. So far we’re doing pretty good.”

After some dark days, North Carolina and Banghart find themselves in a better basketball place that still has plenty of upside. “It’s been the sport that I watched and loved,” she said. “It’s really worked out.”

Banghart laughs because she often refers to herself as the “most expensively educated coach in the country.” But she adds on a more serious note, “had I not been given that (Dartmouth) opportunity – my parents had to take on some significant loans – I would have played soccer. That would have been fine, too.”

Fine, but clearly not the same.

For comments or a story idea, email whaleym25@gmail.com

NHIAA to the NBA: O’Connor embraces NBA coaching life

By Mike Whaley

Brendan O’Connor always had a feeling that basketball would be his career path. He just never expected it to lead to the professional ranks.

The New Hampshire native is in his 10th season as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers – an odyssey that started in New England and, for now, has him in a good place on the West Coast.

O’Connor has been in the NBA since 2000, which includes stops with the Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets and the Clippers. He was part of the staff when the Pistons won the 2004 NBA championship.

“To be honest, to start, I was probably thinking I wanted to be a college coach,” O’Connor said. “But then I got into the pro game right out of college and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Brendan O’Connor’s dad, John “Jack” O’Connor, left, was the first basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover. Jack is pictured with his captains circa the early 1960s. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

O’Connor grew up in Manchester and Gilford the son of a former high school basketball coach. John “Jack” O’Connor coached in the late 1950s and early 1960s at St. Patrick’s in Berlin, New Boston High School and St. Thomas Aquinas HS in Dover where he was a founding member of the faculty while coaching basketball, golf and track. He died in 2020.

“He was a basketball guy,” O’Connor said. “I have three older brothers who were basketball players. I had a love for the game. I kind of knew that was the road I wanted to take.”

O’Connor’s family moved to Gilford when he was 12 where he starred on teams at Gilford High School. He led the Golden Eagles to the 1989 Class M championship game, the 1990 semifinals, and was selected to play in the Alhambra Game – the annual contest that pitted New Hampshire’s top senior players against those from Vermont. It was discontinued after the 2016 games.

He spent a year at prep school with the idea to play in college, but that never panned out. He enrolled at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “I really wasn’t that good, to be honest,” O’Connor said. “I got hurt. It was the end of my career.”

One door closed and another opened.

Because the O’Connors had roots in Manchester – three of O’Connor’s siblings attended Trinity HS – they knew a lot of people. Pat O’Neil hired him to coach the Trinity freshman team with his cousin.

O’Connor did that for one full season and part of another. He graduated from Saint Anselm in December of 1995 with the thought he would finish out the second Trinity season and then maybe find a college position.

New Hampshire-native Brendan O’Connor always knew he wanted to make basketball his life. Since 2000, he has worked in the NBA as an assistant coach and advance scout. [Courtesy photo]

A TASTE OF THE PROS

That changed when – sight unseen – he got in contact over the phone with the Florida Sharks of the United States Basketball League (USBL). The head coach was Eric Mussleman. They hired him, gave him some housing, and had him come down to help out.

“That was my big break,” O’Connor said. “Pat O’Neil gave me my first one.”

Well, the Sharks were a summer league team, so when O’Connor arrived in January, Musselman directed him to recruit players in the old Continental Basketball League (CBA), essentially what the G-League is today.

Musselman would send O’Connor to a city where he knew there were players he wanted to recruit, and get their hotel phone number. “I’d call their room until I got an answer and see if they were interested,” he said. “And if they were, I’d get their number and their agent’s number. So it was really recruiting more than anything else. But we ended up getting some good players.”

Musselman elevated O’Connor from intern to assistant coach before the USBL season, making it clear that he could only hire one assistant, which he already had. But he needed a second assistant on the bench to do some of the charting.

O’Connor was in.

“He and I worked well together,” O’Connor said. “He was a huge part of me doing what I’m doing today.”

The Sharks won the USBL championship during the summer of 1995 and again in 1996. After that 1995 USBL season, Musselman recruited O’Connor to join his CBA staff with the Rapid City Thrillers. “I was the second assistant,” O’Connor said. “Same rule. Not a lot of money. They gave me a place to live and a car. By the end of the season I was his top assistant.”

Musselman ended up getting an NBA job in 1998. O’Connor moved on to another CBA team, also in Grand Rapids, with player/coach Mark Hughes. Hughes had played briefly for Musselman with the Sharks. “He didn’t play for us for long, but we developed a great relationship.” O’Connor said.

O’Connor was an assistant, but when Hughes was on the court as a player, O’Connor became the head coach. “That was a great experience for me,” he said.

O’Connor was set to return for a second year, but the CBA was purchased by former NBA star Isaiah Thomas. He decided to take a job for one year in another league – the International Basketball League – with a team in Richmond, Va.

THE NEXT STEP IS THE NBA

Through his relationship with Hughes, O’Connor met Joe Dumars, who became the president of basketball operations with the Detroit Pistons in 2000.

That led to his next breakthrough, joining the NBA.

O’Connor remembers it well. He was on his honeymoon with his wife, Marlene, on a cruise along Alaska’s Inside Passage.

It was the early days of cell phones, and his was “the size of my car,” O’Connor recalled. He got a call from Dumars, but the reception wasn’t good. He needed to use a pay phone to call Dumars back.

Dumars wanted O’Connor as an advance scout. “I was like ‘I’ll come right now,’” he said. “He said, ‘No rush. Take your time.” It was the end of June. Dumars told O’Connor just to give him a call when he returned home.

O’Connor was living in Massachusetts at the time. When he got home, he called Dumars who put him in touch with somebody else to help him get set up when he got to Detroit.

He flew out on July 4 and was to meet with Dumars the next day. O’Connor woke up that morning in a hotel in Detroit. The stunning headline in the newspaper announced that Detroit’s big star, Grant Hill, had signed with the Orlando Magic.

“I ended up sitting there for about three days without talking to anybody,” O’Connor said. “They were too busy; caught off guard with that one. They were shocked that it was happening. They needed a few days to get everything figured out about what they were going to do.”

Brendan O’Connor, right, is pictured with some members of his immediate family in 2004 with the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy after the Detroit Pistons won the 2004 NBA championship. Also pictured are Brendan’s dad, Jack; brother, Michael; mom, Eileen, and wife, Marlene. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

Believe it or not, O’Connor’s first morning in Detroit was the beginning of the Pistons’ NBA championship build. Hill’s departure actually worked out in Detroit’s favor. They got two players from the Magic – most notably Ben Wallace, who went on to become the NBA’s top defensive player of that era and one of its best rebounders.

In addition, injuries limited Hill to 47 games over the next four years.

“Part of the trade was Ben Wallace. That’s what started it,” O’Connor said. “It was a rough year the first year. It just kept building from there.”

Over the next couple years the championship team took shape. In 2001, Tayshaun Prince and Mehmet Okur were selected in the first two rounds of the NBA draft, and Corliss Williamson was added in a trade; in 2002, free agent Chauncey Billups was signed and Richard Hamilton came to Detroit in a trade for Jerry Stackhouse; in 2003, Lindsey Hunter was reacquired in a trade, and then in February of 2004 the final piece was added – Rasheed Wallace.

By that time, Detroit was on its third coach – Larry Brown. George Irvine had been there for O’Connor’s first year. He was replaced over the next two years by Rick Carlisle, and then Brown was brought in.

“It was a slow process,” O’Connor said. “But when you look back on it, it was pretty quick after that devastating first day.”

As an advance scout, O’Connor was on the road a lot, although by the time Brown took over, he was around the team a little more because Brown wanted that.

“I was in charge of the scouting report for every game,” O’Connor said. “I would send it to the assistant coaches and have conversations with them about our game plan. It was an incredible way to learn the league because you’re on a plane every day when you’re not with the team. You’re going to see teams play and you’re seeing a lot of NBA games each week.”

In 2004, Detroit entered the playoffs as the number three seed in the Eastern Conference. Their road to the NBA finals featured series wins over the Milwaukee Bucks (4-1), New Jersey Nets (4-3), and Indiana Pacers (4-2). In the NBA championship they rolled past the LA Lakers in five games.

“They set all kinds of (defensive) records,” O’Connor said of that team. “It’s a little bit different today. We had a lot of guys with that defensive mindset. At the end of the day it was all about winning.”

O’Connor has had debates with people over the years who claimed the Pistons didn’t have a star. “I thought we had five-plus stars,” he said. “I’d put Chauncey, Rick, Tayshaun, Ben and Rasheed against anyone. They might not be the guys to get 30 (points) every night. But on a given night anyone of them could.

“They all guarded their position and helped each other out,” added O’Connor, while also pointing to the key contributions of Hunter, Okur and Williamson off the bench.

The following year was another banner season, although they were unable to repeat, losing in the NBA finals in seven games to the San Antonio Spurs.

Brown left after that season, taking O’Connor with him to join his staff with the New York Knicks. It was his bounce-around time. Brown lasted one year in New York, so O’Connor joined Musselman in Sacramento for a season, and then back with Brown for several years in Charlotte, and then to Brooklyn with P.J. Carlesimo.

Brendan O’Connor, right, was hired by the LA Clippers by then head coach Doc Rivers in 2013. This is his 10th season with the franchise. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

In 2013, Doc Rivers hired him as an assistant with the LA Clippers and he’s been there ever since. Again, it was a case of building relationships. O’Connor recalls working with Mark Hughes in Grand Rapids in the CBA. Hughes and Rivers had the same agent when they played.

Rivers had retired as a player in 1996. He was doing some TV announcing in 1996-97, but he knew he wanted to get into coaching. He was going to do a second year with TV, but the NBA lockout ended that.

“We’re playing in the CBA, so he came and spent a month with us,” O’Connor said. “He was on the bus with us – six-hour rides. Great guy, great to be around. He and I were the two assistant coaches. We obviously developed a relationship.”

When Rivers was with the Celtics, he wanted O’Connor to join his staff, but it never quite worked out.

That changed, of course, when Rivers got the Clippers job. “He was trying to put a staff together,” O’Connor said. “He called me to see if I’d be interested. Of course, I was interested. It worked out.”

Like his first year with the Pistons, there was more craziness his first year in LA. At the time, the Clippers were owned by Donald Sterling, who was viewed as one of the worst owners in all of professional sports. In the midst of LA’s first-round series with the Golden State Warriors, a racist recording was released between Sterling and his mistress that referenced NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.

“It is something I will never forget,” O’Connor said. The team was in San Francisco for Game 4 of the series. He recalls coming down to have breakfast at the hotel, and there was Rivers all by himself in this big banquet room. 

“He said ‘you’re not going to believe this,’” O’Connor recalled. “He told me the whole story.”

The story had not broken yet, but it would shortly. Rivers called the team together, told them without providing details. “It’s not going to be good,” Rivers said. “We’ve got to stick together.”

After a day of practice it came out that night around 10, remembered O’Connor. The team was leaving practice at the University of San Francisco for the bus ride back to the hotel. The media presence was suffocating. ABC, NBC and CNN were there with their big network trucks, in addition to waves of print and radio reporters. “It was nuts,” O’Connor said. “I’d never seen anything like it.”

The Clippers briefly considered boycotting Game 4, instead deciding to wear their team jerseys inside out to obscure the team logo during the pregame huddle.

When the Clippers got back to LA, the series even at 2-2, their general manager announced to them that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had issued Sterling a life-time ban from the league.

Brendan O’Connor, left, celebrates a big playoff win in 2019 over the Golden State Warriors with JaMychal Green. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

The Clippers ended up winning the series, 4-3, but lost in the next round to Oklahoma City.

The silver lining, in O’Connor’s mind, was that the new owner, Steve Ballmer, was what the Clippers needed. “It was like winning the lottery, to be honest,” O’Connor said. “We didn’t know it at the time. Then Steve Ballmer took over. Talk about a good change at the top. That’s about as good as it gets.”

LA has had success, too, after many years as one of the NBA’s worst franchises. They’ve been to the playoffs nine times since 2011, including the conference finals in 2021.

Rivers was fired in 2020, and Tyronn Lue took over as head coach. O’Connor had worked with Lue during his first year with the Clippers in 2013-14. “He was running the defense for Doc that year,” O’Connor said. “I worked really closely with him.” 

Lue left for Cleveland for four years, winning an NBA championship in 2016 as the head coach after taking over at midseason. He was fired in 2018, worked informally with the Clippers for the remainder of the 2018-19 season, and then was hired as the lead assistant in 2019-20.

“If I had not met him, I probably would not still be here now,” O’Connor said.

Lue’s first year proved to be the best in franchise history. The Clippers advanced all the way to the conference finals, losing to the Phoenix Suns in six games. Last year they went 42-20 and missed the playoffs.

CLIPPERS EYE A PLAYOFF RUN

The Clippers are currently 31-26 and fourth in the Western Conference standings through Tuesday. They have won eight of their last 10 games. “We’ve had to battle through injuries with guys being in and out of the lineup,” O’Connor said. “Hopefully we can keep moving in the direction we are and have a chance to win at the end. We’ve got plenty of time left.”

LA is led by veteran all-stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.

These days, O’Connor’s job is working mostly with the defense. “It’s not like football where there’s an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator,” he said. “I do a lot of the defensive stuff. Tyronn does the offense. I’ll throw some ideas on the offensive side, but I mostly work on the defense.”

Brendan O’Connor’s sons, Desmond and Emmet, are pictured with NBA legend Jerry West, who works with the Clippers as a consultant. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

O’Connor lives with Marlene and their three sons just outside of LA in Manhattan Beach.

Being a head coach has crossed O’Connor’s mind. “I’ve had a few opportunities to leave with positions that might lead to that,” he said. “If you’re in this business you would like to run your own team.”

O’Connor, however, likes where he is. There is great ownership, Lue is an amazing head coach to work with. There’s plenty of upside. “It would have to be a really good situation for me to leave here,” he said. “It would be great to do all the things you want to try. But I love the position I am in right now.”

The subject of 2004 comes around again, and O’Connor says it seems like yesterday. “You look at the calendar. It isn’t,” he said. “I’m like, holy cow, next season will be 20 years.”

He feels that championship opportunity might come again with this current LA team, which some say is the deepest squad in the NBA (seven players averaging in double figures). “Having the group we have and having a chance to win a championship is really at the end of the day what it’s all about,” O’Connor said. “It was a special year – 2004. I’d love to experience that again.”

Got a story idea for Jam Session – email whaleym25@gmail.com

They’re baaaack!! Tiger boys return to contender mode

By Mike Whaley

There was a time when Farmington High School boys basketball was held in high regard across New Hampshire. Those teams guided by Hall of Fame coach Mike Lee earned a reputation for being tough, fast-paced and relentless. Games in their steamy old gymnasium were a popular destination for coaches, players and fans from all corners of the state.

But Lee retired in 1998 after 21 seasons with over 300 wins and two state championships (1984, 1988). Since his departure there have been eight coaches and a pretty meager postseason haul: one trip to the semis (2001) and four to the quarterfinals. Not a sniff of a state championship.

The Tigers may be turning the corner under its current coach, Adam Thurston, whose patience is paying off in his ninth year. He is finally seeing some returns for his efforts.

Farmington is 11-2 in Division IV – ranked fourth with Profile behind Littleton, Concord Christian and Woodsville. It is one of the program’s best starts since the Lee era. The Tigers have done what they’ve done despite missing key players at different junctures due to injury and suspensions. That has only served to give other players more experience and make the team deeper than most in D-IV. They are just now getting everybody back.

Farmington’s 9th-year head coach Adam Thurston.

Farmington plays a withering man-to-man defense and features both size (three players 6-foot-4 or taller) and sound guard play with outside shooting range. There is good scoring balance with six players averaging six points or better a game.

The million dollar question is can this team advance deep into the tournament?

Last year most of this squad was on the floor when Farmington won its first playoff game under Thurston, a convincing 51-31 victory at Groveton in the 8-9 game. Their season ended in the quarters at No. 1 and unbeaten Woodsville, 60-47. It was a five-point game with two minutes to go, before the Engineers were finally able to pull away. Woodsville went on to win its second straight D-IV state title.

“It’s been a labor of love is kind of how I look at it,” said Thurston, a 2007 Farmington HS grad and former player. “When I first took over the program I was 25 at the time and, quite frankly, wasn’t ready to take over a varsity program.”

Because he was the eighth coach in 17 years, his immediate goal was to build continuity. “I was coaching JV at the time,” Thurston said. “I went through the program, so that was something I saw over the years.”

He said he wasn’t concerned about wins and losses. “It was about taking a more consistent approach about things and getting my message across,” Thurston said. “It took a lot of years. Looking back, I thought it would take five to six years to get there, and that’s about what it took.”

There was always talent, but not the commitment. Over the years, Thurston had to deal with outside forces – losing kids to suspensions, grades, apathy. “It’s been a struggle,” he said. “Last year was the year we finally got over the hump.”

Most of that team returned. With several additions, it has turned the Tigers into a contender. 

Senior Jordan Berko.

“When we were freshmen, we had a lot of talent on the team,” said senior big man Jordan Berko, the Tigers’ tallest player at 6-foot-6. “We couldn’t mesh together as we do now. I feel like a lot of the guys on the team are really close friends outside of basketball. Everybody really knows each other. There were some guys my freshman year who weren’t as dedicated to the sport so they fooled around outside of school and got into trouble or skipped practice or just went through the motions at practice. But now everything is fast-paced. We are focused.”

Thurston saw it coming as early as 2019 when the short-handed Tigers lost at Pittsfield in the first round of the tournament, 61-49, but it was a two-point game with four minutes to go. In 2020, they made a playoff trip to Groveton, only to lose a tight battle in the final minutes. But it was the same old same old – Berko was injured and a suspended starter missed the game.

Senior Matt Savoy.

Last year’s respectable playoff showing has given the team confidence. “It was awesome to see that we could make it that far,” said senior guard Matt Savoy. “It gave us a dose of energy this year – wanting to get past that this year and going all the way; or at least trying.”

A big influence, in Thurston’s mind, is the commitment to play off season, particularly over the summer. “When I took over I was knocking on eighth-graders’ doors with waivers to get them to play summer league,” he said. “I didn’t have enough high school kids. Now I’m turning kids away because we don’t have enough summer league jerseys. So that’s the big difference right there. That’s been the last two to three years we’ve had consistent off-season numbers. We’ve had less kids coming and going; kids messing up from time to time.”

Even though there were early season troubles, Farmington was able to figure things out. Two rotation players missed some time in December and January, and valuable junior starter Shawn Murphy suffered an injury that caused him to miss three games. He’s currently working his way back into the lineup.

“It allowed for some younger guys to move up, some guys with lesser roles to get their shot at it,” Thurston said. “It’s paid dividends down the stretch.”

Farmington is deeper for it, able to realistically play as many as nine or 10 players. “We really haven’t shown what we truly can be yet,” Thurston said. “We’re still very much an unfinished product.”

Senior Brian Boisvert.

Berko and Savoy lead the way as senior co-captains, averaging 15.3 and 8.8 points per game, respectively. Junior point guard Aiden Place (10.0 ppg) and senior guard Brian Boisvert (11.2 ppg) are two pleasant surprises in the backcourt, while Murphy (6.1 ppg) at 6-0 is a key contributor and a potential No. 2 scorer when he is healthy. Senior Luke Cardinal and junior Dylan Zappala are the Tigers’ 6-4 guys off the bench, while junior Cody Brazee and sophomore Noah Elwell are two players who benefited – and delivered – from increased playing time when others were either injured or suspended.

What makes Farmington so difficult to defend is that their scoring comes at you from so many different directions. Berko is the leading scorer, but he is unselfish to a fault, willing to get the ball to an open man first. It’s not uncommon for the Tigers to have three or four scorers in double figures, and not always the same names.

Thurston knew coming into the season what he was getting from Berko, Savoy and Murphy. Berko provides great defense and a double-double, Savoy is that all-around Swiss Army Knife type guy, and Murphy, when healthy, is a player who can be a consistent double-figures scorer.

Junior Aiden Place.

The surprises have been Place, Bosivert and Brazee. Place has embraced the point guard position where he distributes the ball well, plays tough defense and is an above average 3-point shooter. He leads the team in steals and assists. “In my opinion he’s been our biggest surprise,” Thurston said.

When players were out, Boisvert added some much needed offense and Brazee has been a pleasant offensive revelation off the bench.

Thurston recently pulled each player aside individually to discuss their roles down the stretch with the team returning to full strength. “The first thing is that it’s made things in practice very competitive, which is great,” he said. “The starters versus the bench are playing each other within one or two possessions. That’s great. We have unreal depth. I feel comfortable on any given night going 10 deep. I don’t think other teams in the division can do that.”

The schedule beefs up in February, which is where the Tigers will find out what they are made of. Thurston figures they need to run the table to have a shot at a top-four spot, which will allow them home court until the tournament moves to a neutral site for the semis and final.

That took a hit on Tuesday with a 69-56 loss at Concord Christian, a game that was tied at 38-all late in the third quarter before CCA pulled away.

Actually two losses may keep them in the top four with some of the top northern teams beating each other up down the wire. Littleton (13-0), Woodsville (9-1), Profile and Groveton (9-3) play each other at least once before the season ends next week. Woodsville and Groveton meet twice. Last year as the No. 9 seed, Farmington had to make two three-hour trips in the same week to Groveton and Woodsville. That is something Thurston would like to avoid.

Junior Shawn Murphy.

“We didn’t take care of business early on in the year, which we were certainly capable of,” Thurston said of last year. “We didn’t win those 50/50 games that we needed to. In Division IV that matters a ton. That was a big lesson coming out of that; we need to start fast, which we’ve done this year, obviously.”

Looking ahead, the Tigers have big games with Portsmouth Christian (their first loss) on Saturday and Newmarket to end the regular season on Feb. 10.

The PCA loss was the one game where the normally relentless man-to-man defense went complacent at the wrong time. “We need to get that out of our system the rest of the way,” Thurston said. “Grooming those things on the defensive end is going to be huge for us.”

Now that Farmington is back in the contender conversation, the Tigers are feeling good about themselves and their potential.

“At the [Farmington] 500, [the youth program in town], they’re always talking about ‘oh, the high school team has a game. You should go and watch it with your parents,’” said Savoy.

“I like being in the conversation,” Berko said. “When we show up for games during warm-ups we look out in the crowd and it’s totally full – both sides of the gym. There’s people there to watch. With us playing well and getting more fans, I like that.”

Who wouldn’t?

Got a story idea for Jam Session – email whaleym25@gmail.com

Flying high – again: Orioles right where they want to be

By Mike Whaley

That the Conant High School girls basketball team is at the top of the NHIAA Division III standings is no surprise. The Orioles expect to be there.

Having now ventured into the second half of the D-III season, Conant is the last undefeated team left in the division with an 11-0 record and one of five in the state. Led by seniors Brynn Rautiola and Emma Tenters, both four-year varsity players, the Orioles have something to prove this season.

Small wonder.

Last winter, the Orioles flew into the D-III championship riding the wave of two straight state championships and 58 consecutive wins (66 if you count holiday tournament wins). Monadnock pulled off the upset, stinging Conant with a 50-31 loss.

The 2022-23 Conant HS girls basketball team includes, from left, Adrienne Kennedy, Brynn Rautiola, Irelynd Aucoin, Lola Hayes, Amy Lucier, Emma Tenters, Graecen Kirby, Maicee Peard, Hannah Manley, Bella Hart and Violet Bennett. [Courtesy photo]

“I think there was a lot of pressure in that game,” said Tenters, who scored 23 points including  her 1,000th career point on Saturday in a 54-33 win over Gilford. “A lot of people were nervous. We just kind of played out of character. Everyone was like ‘three-peat, 50-something game win streak.’ All the pressure. All the talk. I think it just kind of got into our heads.”

Rautiola said it was heartbreaking, but the loss fueled Conant in the offseason. “We worked hard with a chip on our shoulders. Obviously it sucked losing,” she said. “We learned more from losing that game. Throughout the offseason we looked back at that game. It makes you mature in a way that you look at it as the best thing to happen. … It’s motivation to keep working with your foot on the gas to practice every day and give 100 percent.”

“You tip your hat to Monadnock last season,” said coach Brian Troy. “They earned that victory. I think maybe we felt the weight of expectations a little too much. That may have played a role in it.”

There are few New Hampshire communities that take their basketball as seriously as Conant – both boys and girls. Since the mid 1980s, the two Oriole programs have combined to win 21 state titles – all in Division III/Class M. No other D-III program comes close.

The girls teams have always been solid, but they really took off in the 21st century. Since 2004, the Orioles have appeared in 11 state championship games and won seven.

A native of nearby Keene, Troy played basketball at Keene High (2009 grad) and then Rivier University in Nashua. He was a co-head coach for the Keene HS boys for a year and then an assistant at Keene State University with the women’s team.

He had no master plan to get into coaching, other than wanting to somehow be involved with basketball. He certainly never thought he’d be coaching girls.

Conant won the state title in 2015. A year later the position opened up. “I felt pretty confident and wanted to be a head coach and run my own program,” Troy said. “Conant was always a storied program. I saw the opportunity and really wanted it. It’s been great ever since.”

This is Troy’s seventh year. In that time, the Orioles have been to five championship games with three wins.

“There were definitely high expectations from the beginning,” he said, although his first year there was a universal feeling that a down year was in store. Conant overachieved, making it to the 2017 final, losing by eight points to Monadnock.

“After that it just kind of took off,” Troy said.

The Orioles won the title in 2018, lost in the 2019 semis and then won back-to-back crowns in 2020 and 2021. Last year was another trip to the finals, albeit a heartbreaking loss.

“No. 1 is the culture we have in the whole community and the basketball programs, both boys and girls, they really just wear their hearts on their sleeves,” Troy said. “Basketball is the biggest thing around the community.”

After last year’s championship loss, one thing Troy wanted to do was to try to put the Orioles in a position to play in tighter games. With few exceptions, the previous three years had been a series of blowouts.

One thing he did is enter the team in the Manchester Central HS holiday tournament against bigger schools. The Orioles made it to the final with wins over D-I Central and Merrimack, losing to Bow (8-0 in Division II) by three points. “We wanted everything hard for this group,” the coach said.

Their regular season has been more competitive. They opened the season with three tough games vs. Stevens, Monadnock and Hopkinton, which they won by 13, 12 and 11 points, respectively.

On Jan. 5, the Orioles had an early-season showdown with Concord Christian, a team that had moved up to D-III after dominating D-IV last year en route to an undefeated state championship.

The Orioles led by as many as 15 points, but then had to hold on to win, 59-58.

“We knew going in how talented they were,” said Troy, a physical education teacher at Marlborough School (preschool through Grade 8). “That was a great game, even though it got too close at the end. We had a 15-point lead and almost blew it. … It was good to get a feel for that game and see and feel who they are as a team.”

Rautiola said, “We kind of lost our composure a little bit in that game. We have experience on our side. We kind of know what it takes to win.”

“That was another situational thing that was nice to have as an experience,” Tenters said. “We had to really focus and make shots at the end. We ended up holding them off and winning the game.”

[Courtesy photo]

The Orioles have some tough games ahead, including several difficult tests on the road at Stevens on Saturday and Concord Christian on Feb. 6.

Rautiola and Tenters are the heart and soul of the Orioles – Rautiola as the point guard and Tenters as the 5-foot-11 force inside with the ability to hit outside shots. Last year she was the D-III player of the year.

Both girls plan to play ball at the next level – Rautiola at Keene State and Tenters at Emmanuel College in Boston.

“She’s been great,” said Troy about Tenters. “Her outside shooting has come a long way, which has added a huge strength to our team. Her overall leadership has been phenomenal. … It’s huge to have a player like her. It makes things a little easier when things are tight.”

Troys believes Rautiola is one of the best guards in the state. “Just in terms of her being able to manage the flow of the game and dictate the tempo,” he said. The 5-foot-7 Rautiola has been called on to score more this year, a role she has embraced along with her point-guard duties.

“Those two are at the head of everything we do,” Troy said. “We’re riding their leadership. They’ve been phenomenal since the season started.”

The Conant girls basketball team is pictured last season at Keene State College where they advanced to the D-III state final, losing to Monadnock. [Courtesy photo]

The rest of the rotation includes another senior, guard Adrienne Kennedy. “She brings a lot of intensity and all-out hustle and scrappiness and toughness that this team needs,” Troy said. A bit undersized, Kennedy is a good shooter who helps the Orioles with her overall energy.

Junior guard Bella Hart “brings a great basketball IQ and skill set to the team” Troy said. She is a very good passer with great court vision. An adept ball handler, she can relieve Rautiola at the point when needed.

Rounding out the starting five is sophomore guard Hannah Manley, the team’s third-leading scorer (5.9 ppg). “Her overall intensity and energy level and shooting ability is a perfect fit for this team because we’re able to get into the paint and be more of a shooting team that maybe we weren’t last year,” Troy said.

The key reserves are junior forward Amy Lucier, the first inside player off the bench, and junior Ireyland Aucoin, the first guard to come in, bringing intensity, toughness and athleticism.

Offensively, the Orioles like to space the floor, dribble drive and kick. Troy feels they may shoot better than last year. “I think it’s been a huge weapon for us,” he said. “We’ve put a huge emphasis on it.”

Whereas past teams may have been more run and gun, this year’s edition of the Orioles will still do that, but they’re comfort level is in their halfcourt sets – strengthened by their shooting.

Conant primarily uses half court man-to-man on defense. “Conant basketball starts and finishes on the defensive end of the floor,” Troy said. “Just being able to shut down teams if we’re not scoring as much as we can. … We like to get in your face. We’re aggressive. It’s kind of what we’ve been ever since I got here from day one.”

The Orioles follow the lead of their two senior stars. Tenters (19.4 ppg) and Rautiola (18.3 ppg) pace the team in scoring, accounting for two-thirds of Conant’s offense. They’re as good a 1-2 scoring punch as there is in the state. Since they were freshmen, Conant has gone 79-2 overall, including holiday tournaments.

“She’s my point guard,” said Tenters of Rautiola. “Whether she’s making plays, sticking 3s or locking someone up on defense, she always is making an impact on the floor.”

Rautiola appreciates her teammate’s court presence. “She makes the game a lot easier for everyone,” Rautiola said. “A lot of teams have to put a lot of focus into her. Once they do that, I feel like the game opens up a lot for everyone else.”

When Tenters hit 1,000 points on Saturday, she joined a pretty select Conant group of girls on the banner in the high school gym; names like Stenberg, Hunt, Bellette, Oswalt, Neyens, Springfield and Gonyea.

While the milestone was a goal for Tenters, it was not an obsession. “I’m focused more on the game than the points,” she said. When Elizabeth Gonyea hit 1,000 during Tenters’ sophomore year, the senior made a point of telling her younger teammate, “I want to see your name up there next.”

Tenters laughs. “That kind of motivated me to actually get there.”

Of course, Tenters embraces the bigger picture as do all of the Orioles. “At the same time it’s more about winning games,” she said. “Not necessarily how many points I’m going to get.”

Conant forges ahead, eyeing the rest of its regular season and the playoffs beyond. The goal doesn’t change. Like past Oriole teams, they expect to be playing on the last day of the Division III season, which in this case is the state championship on Feb. 25, 5 p.m., at Keene State College.

“We just need to make sure we take every game seriously,” Tenters said. “We know that everybody is coming for us because we have that history of winning.”

Team Romps: Avery and her dad work to make her better

By Mike Whaley

Unlike most athletes, Avery Romps has a built-in trainer and coach in her dad, Mike. Pretty sweet deal if you can get it.

Avery attends Portsmouth High School where the 5-foot-11 junior stars on the Clipper girls basketball team, which is 6-1 in Division I. 

While Avery is helping Portsmouth to experience another strong season in D-I and work her way to college at the NCAA Division I or II level, her dad is helping her to be the best that she can be.

Mike is a Grade 2/kindergarten teacher in Dover, a life coach and personal trainer, and a former varsity boys basketball coach at Dover High School.

He played basketball in high school at Manchester Central and then at Plymouth State University. He got into coaching after college as an assistant at now defunct Daniel Webster College, followed by stops at Keene State, Central Missouri State (where he met his wife, Jackie) and the University New Hampshire. Mike was the head coach for one year at Tilton School, before he took the Dover job. Basketball has been a big part of his life, as it has for Avery.

When Mike was the head coach at Dover High for 15 years (2001 to 2016), his two daughters spent many hours in Dover’s old Ollie Adams Gymnasium. 

He recalls, at the time, having three job offers at Dover, Portsmouth and Berwick Academy. “I felt it was important to live, teach and coach in the same community,” he said. “The only place we could afford to live was Dover.”

Mike remembers a lot happening in 2001. It was his first year teaching and coaching in Dover, Jackie got pregnant with their older daughter, Samantha, and they got married. 

Samantha was born in 2002. “From then on, the girls were in the gym,” said Mike, who has taught in Dover for 23 years, the last 21 years at Garrison School. “People were babysitting them left and right. They were at all the games.”

Avery was born in 2006. She smiles about her early basketball memories with her dad. “We would always be in the gym running around,” she said. “I don’t remember the games, but it was fun being on the sidelines all the time. I was so young. It was a bunch of these tall guys. It was really nerve-wracking. It definitely made me interested in basketball a lot more; the game in general. How to play.”

Mike recalls Avery in her bouncy seat with her basketball with her name on it. “I can remember her running up and down the bleachers,” he said. “Listening in timeouts; getting snacks and candy during the games. From the jump, I don’t think there was a day when there wasn’t something like basketball in our lives.”

With Samantha, Romps said he was a little more “cautious and cerebral” because she was the eldest, the first child. He stayed at arm’s length as far as coaching her. Samantha went through the Dover school system, playing basketball as well. She graduated from Dover HS in 2019.

Mike felt Avery had more of an edge on her, and he felt she really liked the sport. There was also a very good group of similar aged Dover athletes – Tory Vitko, Payton Denning, Julia Rowley, Lanie Mourgenos.

By the time Avery was in second grade, she was not only playing Little Shots with the Dover Recreation Department, but also traveling to tournaments. Mike coached those teams, which did very well. “I would like to think they’re all reaping the rewards now,” he said.

Avery recalls the four-team rec league being fun. The travel ball allowed the girls to play against better competition. “That helped us improve at an early age,” she said.

If you know Mike Romps, he is an intense person. When he coaches, he has a lot of fire and energy. Avery is lower key. Early on she was not as receptive to his criticism as she is now. 

“When I was younger I was a little more sensitive,” Avery said. “He would critique me too much and I just couldn’t (take it).”

But then Avery got to the point where she could see that her dad’s suggestions were helpful. “Now I take them and try to improve my game and it obviously works,” she said.

Although he’s not so sure now, at the time he coached Avery and the girls hard. “We were very clear with the parents,” he said. “The Sue Vitkos of the world and people like her, they were just as into it as I was.”

Mike always kept in mind that they were young kids and he couldn’t treat him like high school players. But he felt strongly about accountability, defense and rebounding. “There was a lot of the time I would pull someone out of the game, “ he said. “I think that’s the hard part of being a parent-coach, that your first inclination is to be hardest on your kid because you know all the parents are watching and keeping track.”

Fortunately, there were few issues. Mike had this group of girls from Grade 2 until Grade 8, and they did very well. “It was just a situation where they were used to being coached like that,” he said. “Everyone was kind on the same page, which made it a special time for all of us.”

Avery laughs at some of those memories, which weren’t always rosy. “At times, it was not fun,” she said. “I improved a lot mentally. If a coach is going to yell at me, I’m that much mentally stronger now.”

The silver lining was that the team did very well and Avery got better as a player. “Two years we were undefeated,” she said. “It just made the game so much more fun to play, especially with these girls because we were all good friends.”

Things changed just before Avery went to high school. The family decided to move to Greenland. Several factors played a role in that move. Mike’s parents were now living with them. He was also looking to enhance his business as a life coach and personal trainer. The Greenland property provided space for a full basketball court and land to run camps.

The move meant a new start at a new school for Avery. Mike understood that. He just wanted to make sure she was surrounded by good people, like she had been in Dover. It also meant he needed to step away from his daughter as a coach.

As it turned out, Mike had coached some of the Portsmouth girls in a summer league in Danvers, Mass. “We were lucky to know most of the parents,” he said. “We had conversations and asked if they were open (to Avery coming to Portsmouth). They were welcoming and warm from the jump.”

It still wasn’t easy. Due to the pandemic, Avery did not attend classes in person until January of 2021. Basketball, which started in January due to the pandemic, made things easier.

“I remember going to the first couple of open gyms and I was so nervous,” she said. “I knew these girls from playing against them when I was younger. We always played against each other and it was competitive, but now we’re going to be on the same team. It was definitely different. But after a couple of open gyms, I got super close with a lot of them. It became so much more fun.”

Portsmouth’s Avery Romps, left, maneuvers against a Dover defender during her sophomore year. [Mike Whaley photo]

Plus the team had success. Avery was one of four freshmen who played significant minutes along with Maddie MacCannell, Margaret Montplaisir and Mackenzie Lombardi. The Clippers made a run to the D-I semis, which included an upset of a veteran Exeter club in the quarterfinals.

Last year as sophomores, they had another strong year, again making it as far as the semis. Avery was named to the D-I All-State Second team. “With that, there’s a target on their back this year,” Mike said.

Mike also appreciates how the Portsmouth program is handled. “Coach (Tim) Hopley runs the program the right way,” Mike said. “I respect the way he runs it. He is a defensive-minded coach. It’s made the transition much easier for everybody.”

For Hopley, the Romps situation had always been a good one. “There has never been a time when (Mike) overstepped his boundaries,” Hopley said. “He works with a lot of our players in the offseason. … He’s done a lot to certainly help Avery’s game, but also to help all of the players in our program or at least give them the opportunity to help them improve.

“It’s a situation for me where I know they’re being taught great fundamental skills when they’re with him,” Hopley said. “He’s respectful of what we try to do in our program. I never get the sense with Avery that she’s in conflict. It’s a great situation. There’s no other way to put it.”

Now that she’s a junior, Avery is starting to consider colleges. She has one offer from Saint Anselm College, a D-II school in Manchester. “I’m still waiting,” she said.

In the meantime, she plans to work on her game and do her best to help the Clippers advance as far as they can in the D-I tournament.

“The big thing I have worked on this year is my aggression,” Avery said. “Last year, I was a shooter and just attacked when I was open. This year I’m really trying to initiate the contact. I have way more intensity. I’ve improved in that way.”

Portsmouth’s Avery Romps (24) launches a shot from the corner during a game vs. Spaulding when she was a freshman. [Mike Whaley photo]

Mike said that improvement is clear in the numbers. Avery’s grandad keeps her statistics. Last year she took 50 free throws. Through five games this year she has already taken 39. “That’s a barometer that you are attacking the rim,” Mike said.

Similar to that point, Hopley weighs in on Avery’s need to be more physical. “She is starting to play the game in a more physical manner, which is what is required not only to play at a high level in high school but to play at the college level,” he said. “I think that’s one of those things she’s continuing to work on. She’s made huge strides in that part of her game.”

Hopley pointed to a game last week with Pinkerton (71-62 win) in which Avery took over in the second half. “She was willing to be physical, attacking the paint,” he said. “I think she drew two ‘and-ones’. Those are things she might not have done her first two years in our program.”

There have been some interesting Romps car rides where the conversation comes around to being more aggressive. “What we’re saying is there have been times throughout her career that she wasn’t,” Mike said. “I come back to her: ‘You’re putting in the time. Go out there and show people what you can do.’ There were times when it got intense and I was told by my wife to shut up, to leave it alone.”

Avery also feels she has improved defensively. “I have this non-stop motor on the court,” she said. “I’m always playing intensely, supporting my teammates. I’m not getting down on myself when I miss shots.”

Mike says the schools that have been looking at Avery have been clear about what they want to see. In their training sessions together, Avery has been very receptive to what Mike puts out there. She also uses the weight room in the family basement to improve her strength. “She’s learned that there are certain things outside of practice she has to do,’ Mike said. “Whether that’s getting up shots, lifting weights or going for runs.”

Portsmouth, in Mike’s opinion, is letting Avery create more, to be a facilitator on the court. “There are a lot of pieces to Avery’s game that the average Joe might not see,” Mike said. “But whether it’s covering the best player or bringing the ball up the court or making that extra pass or rebounding, I’m just proud of the basketball player that she is. She is definitely a coach’s kid in that regard.”

Mike Romps speaks to a youth group at the Farmington 500 back in 2019.

Mike believes the only thing holding her back is she needs to be a little more selfish. As an example, Mike points out that Avery is big on making that extra pass. It’s something she’s always done. “Sometimes, hey, you’re the one who just took 500 shots, you shoot it,” he said. “There’s that balance of selfishness and team play and being a coach. I’ve always taught her to make the right play. Now I’m turning around and telling her to shoot that shot. It can be confusing at times. We’re still working on it.”

Avery does see the wisdom in what her dad is saying. “Especially since I put in so much time,” she said. “I wasn’t showing anyone that. I was just being an average player. Just doing what was open. Now it’s clicked in the past couple months. I have all this skill. I can finally show people since I put all this work in.”

Mike regrets not putting enough time into his own game. That makes him more than ever want to help his daughter maximize her potential. “I’m going to do everything I can as long as Avery is open to it,” he said. “To make her as good a player as she can be.”

He pauses, adding: “When push comes to shove, I’m just the person rebounding and making suggestions. She’s the one that has to do the work.”

Have a story idea for Jam Session – email whaleym25@gmail.com.

Project Profile: Four-year mission to top of D-IV

By Mike Whaley

Mitchell Roy has a plan. It is a four-year project to elevate the Profile High School boys basketball team from the Division IV cellar to the championship podium – something that has happened just once in school history (2004).

It is not an easy task in New Hampshire’s North Country, where Profile is forever chasing the likes of Woodsville, Littleton, Colebrook, Groveton and Lisbon – the perennial powers in this sparsely populated neck of the woods.

But with this current Patriot team, Roy thinks he has the makings of a championship caliber squad. Led by junior scoring phenom Josh Robie, Profile is off to an 8-1 start (11-2 overall) in D-IV. The core players are all juniors and sophomores.

Profile went a disappointing 1-9 during Roy’s first season in 2020-21, which was limited by Covid-19. Roy said had they played a full schedule they still would have won just the one game, which they were lucky to win.

Profile head coach Mitchell Roy.

He met individually with the players, mostly freshmen, after the season. “I sold them on the idea of a four-year process,” said Roy, who at 24 is one of the youngest coaches in the state. “I told them if we stick with it and get full buy-in, we can get something special. It’s not there. But it’s on its way to being something really special.”

Last year, the Patriots went 10-9 overall, losing in the first round of the tournament to Holy Family. It could have been better. There were some games they could have won that they let slip away. But still it was a positive step forward. Plus they did what they did with sophomores and freshmen, certainly an uphill battle when facing senior-dominated teams like Woodsville.

Now that the Patriots are enjoying a bit of success, Roy can reflect on his first two years when he took a job that nobody else wanted. He is a graduate of Canaan High School in Vermont where he played basketball for second-tier cooperative Pittsburg-Canaan teams. Roy attended Endicott College in Beverly, Massachusetts, ostensibly to keep his basketball dream alive. He wanted to coach.

Not all that shocking when you realize it’s in his blood. His mom, Sarah Roy, is a successful head girls hoop coach at North Country Union HS in Newport, Vermont. The Falcons won the 2021 Vermont Division II state title. This season they are off to a 10-0 start.

Roy got to be part of coach Kevin Bettencourt’s program at Endicott as a manager and then student assistant. The Gulls did well, advancing to three Commonwealth Coast Conference championship games and a NCAA Division III Sweet 16. There he was able to work with some tremendous New Hampshire players like Portsmouth’s Kamahl Walker, Pelham’s Keith Brown and Dover’s Ty Vitko.

Watching how Bettencourt handled, in particular, Brown, a career 2,000-point scorer, helped to prepare Roy to coach Robie and “know the right amount of freedom to let him play with and creative ways to get him open.”

Originally, Roy had planned to stay at Endicott as a volunteer assistant for the 2020-21 season, but when it was clear that Covid was going to limit the college season, he decided to look elsewhere.

“The Profile job popped open,” he said. “I remember playing against them when I was at Pittsburg-Canaan. I thought it was a pretty nice little school.”

Roy went up for an interview. He met the athletic director Jack Bartlett and one of the players, Josh Robie. He felt it would be a good fit. Others did not. He talked to a wide variety of people with some telling him flat out not to take the job – mainly arguing it was low-level high school and that the program had not been good in some time.

Good points, perhaps, but Roy was undeterred. He took the job.

The first year was difficult. Roy decided to go with younger players, letting them play through their mistakes. “We were pretty bad,” he said. Part of that was on him for, as he said, doing a “poor job choosing what to emphasize.”

It was a learning exercise and Roy learned a lot. “You can’t cut corners,” he said. “You can’t worry about installing offensive plays when we aren’t even doing the fundamentals of the game right. I learned how to build that up more properly. It’s still not perfect, but we’re trying to get better.”

2022-23 Profile Patriots.

Roy struggled with his own coaching identity. Because he was so young (22), he tried to be something he’s not – a disciplinarian. “I really tried to separate myself from them,” he said. “To show them that I’m older. Doing that so as not to get in the trap of being their friend. That was not what we needed either.”

Eventually he got it right. He sees that being a younger coach as an advantage. “I can understand what they’re going through,” he said. “I was literally their age not long ago.”

After that first season there was pushback. Some people wanted Roy fired. They claimed he didn’t know how to manage a program, that he didn’t know what he was doing. Thankfully Principal Kerry Bushway and Bartlett had his back. “They trusted me to be a mentor to these kids,” he said. “They both saw my vision. They both supported me even when we started off pretty poorly.”

That support has been key for Roy at a school that for a long time has not been basketball focused. Profile is known for its winter strength in its prolific alpine skiing program, which has a deep tradition of winning state championships dating back to the 1970s. 

That first season is still firmly imprinted in many of the current players’ minds. “It was definitely a rough year,” Robie said. “Out of all the years, we probably learned the most that year.”

“It was also adjusting to high school,” said junior forward Alex Leslie. “We were freshmen, just out of middle school adjusting to the level of (high school) competition. We learned that we had to be the leaders of the team and play with each other and stay together as a team and not fight and argue.”

The second year was a definite improvement. It helped to make a commitment to summer basketball, similar to what other schools like Woodsville were doing. “Playing in the summer and playing a lot of games kind of makes you get better,” Robie said.  “We went from one win to 10 wins. That’s a big difference.”

Indeed, going head to head with bigger D-II and III schools in the Lakes Region Summer League in Laconia, in Roy’s words, “really helped teach us how to play the right way.”

Junior Josh Robie.

Things, however, could have been better. They lost twice to Littleton in games they had a chance to win – Roy’s concise explanation was “we quite frankly got outcoached.” They played too much man-to-man defense that in retrospect cost them a win or two because key players got in foul trouble they otherwise might not have had they been playing zone. “There was a lot of self-evaluation on my end in understanding how I can become a better coach and how I can put these guys in better spots to succeed,” he said.

Which brings us to this season. The Patriots have had a good start, but it’s not good enough until they prove they can hang with the top teams. Last Friday’s 55-43 loss at two-time defending champion Woodsville proves that there is still work to do.

“We’ve learned a lot, but we need to win these games,” Robie said after the Patriots lost to Belmont (56-46) in the championship game of the Mike Lee  Holiday Basketball Bash in Farmington. It was a tournament they expected to win. “We’re juniors now. In the past they would say we’re younger. I definitely take some blame on myself. It was definitely one of my worst shooting games of the year. It can’t happen in big games like that.”

Indeed, Profile’s big guns – Robie and Leslie – got their looks, but didn’t deliver, finishing with 17 and 13 points, respectively. There were several added distractions that they all refuse to use as excuses. Robie was closing in on 1,000 points, which he did hit in the loss. His parents got in an automobile accident driving to the game, but were able to make it in time to see their son score the milestone point. Robie’s twin brother, Karsen, one of the team’s key role players, incurred an injury that required stitches in his lip.

“Our two best players had an off night and we still had a chance to win that game,” Roy said. “We were down three with 1:40 (and change) left because other guys stepped up. Karsen had a good game. We know it takes defense. This year we’ve defended. We need to defend harder when the shots aren’t falling. That’s a sign of a more mature team. I’m not saying we’re a more mature team yet. We’re more mature than we were last year. Last year that would have been a 30-point loss.” 

The past is past and the Patriots are looking forward. Taking solace in losses is not part of the program. “We’ve got to win every game we can,”  said Robie, who is averaging nearly 32 points per game. “Every single team we’ve played, we’ve lost to. We were that bad. We think about it as revenge. We got slaughtered – literally by 40 and 50 points – over and over. At this point it’s almost personal. We have the mentality that we’re here to fight and we’re here to win. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Junior Alex Leslie.

Even as well as they’ve played this season, Leslie notes nothing significant has been accomplished. “We haven’t proven ourselves yet,” he said. “We haven’t done anything. We haven’t won a playoff game. We haven’t been to the final four. We haven’t won a championship. Our goal is to just make it further and hopefully become better.”

That seems to be happening, although last Friday’s loss to Woodsville was an eye-opener. Robie scored a game-high 26 points, but everyone else combined for 17. That can’t happen for the Patriots to be successful. Leslie, who is averaging 18.4 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, was limited to eight points.

Part of that is on Roy who said he was not putting Leslie in a better position to score. Going forward, they need to focus more on getting him going toward the basket, in the paint. “We’re going to try to work him inside more,” Roy said.

Profile has a six-man rotation, all underclassmen. Josh Robie is the leader, a 5-foot-11 junior point guard. Leslie is a 6-2 junior forward. The other four are Karsen Robie, a 5-9 junior guard; 5-11 sophomore Cayden Wakeham, 5-9 junior Riley Plante and 6-2 sophomore Jackson Clough.

Karsen Robie is a smaller version of his brother. He’s a good shooter, who is working on defending and rebounding better. “He’s doing what he needs to do to stay on the floor,” Roy said.

Sophomore Cayden Wakeham.

Wakeham is a do-it-all player, who handles the ball, defends and rebounds well. He’s working on becoming more consistent with his outside shooting.

Plante and Clough are Roy’s “two glue guys.” Plante is the team’s heart and soul on defense. “Every loose ball, he’s on it,” Roy said. “He can defend big guys and he can defend good guards.” Although Plante is not an impact on offense, Roy said they can’t put a price tag on his value because he does so much for the team.

Clough has some size and gets a lot of minutes, while working on making his outside shot more consistent and picking his spots to drive to the basket. 

Leslie and Josh Robie are the main guys. 

Roys says Leslie sets the tone for the personality of the team because of the way he carries himself in the locker room. He is a tremendous forward and athlete – Profile’s rugged inside presence.  “I have a really good relationship with him,” Roy said. “I spend a lot of time with him outside of our basketball season. Building that relationship and trust has been really important because he sets the tone for the team’s attitude, really.”

Leslie is a multi-talented presence who can score inside, pass the ball, rebound and defend.

Sophomore Jackson Clough.

Josh Robie sets the tone for the program. “Basketball is his life,” Roy said. “Outside of my fiancee, Josh is the person in the world I talk the most to. We are constantly communicating – texting or messaging about basketball; whether it’s high school, college or NBA. Anything to do with basketball.”

Robie is the face of the Patriots and consequently carries the biggest load. He is not only expected to score at a high clip, but he is also counted on to handle the ball as the point guard. “I’ve put in the time to get where I am today,” he said. “If they are relying on me to score, I think I can come through. I know I can take care of the ball. Taking care of the ball for me is second nature. … Scoring has definitely been something that is more important. Obviously the team needs it to win games.”

Primarily a 3-point shooter before this season, Robie has expanded his game. “He’s done a much better job driving to the lane this year,” Roy said. “He’s really worked on finishing through contact and not just being a stationary shooter.”

At 5-11, 140 pounds, Robie is still developing physically. He’s grown, but needs to get stronger. “That’s an offseason issue,” Roy said. “We don’t want to mess up the shot. He’s doing the necessary work to improve his body. He can play through contact a lot better than he used to.”

Junior Josh Robie.

The fine line that Roy walks is figuring out how much freedom to give Robie. He doesn’t want to suffocate his star player. “A lot of it is taking my hands off a little bit,” Roy said. “I have a really good scorer; a really good shooter. Let me not harness him too much. Let me pick the right times to let him play with some freedom.”

Last year Roy felt he may have given Robie too much freedom. “This year, we’ve worked on slowing it down if we’ve got leads,” he said. “I have to understand this is a great player; don’t mess this up. Trust his creativity offensively.”

Eventually Robie and the 2,000-point milestone will come into focus, something that falls outside of Profile’s team-first framework. With a good chunk of his junior season and his whole senior season still to play, Robie has an excellent chance of hitting that mark if he can stay healthy. It’s inevitable. It hasn’t been done in New Hampshire since 2007 (by Mascoma Valley’s Tonya Young) and it’s never been accomplished in the North Country.

Scoring first for Robie fits into what Profile is trying to do offensively because they push the ball. “We try to push it and see if we can get a fast break opportunity,” Roy said. “Sometimes the best looks for 3-pointers we can get for Josh come in transition because teams are really focused on  halfcourt defense.”

Effectively pushing the ball means it’s harder for teams to get into their defense and that makes it easier to get Robie open – to get him moving off screens for those open 3s that can get the Patriots rolling.

Junior Alex Leslie.

On defense, their short rotation lends itself to zones and less man-to-man to avoid foul trouble.

The pain and frustration of the past two years is slowly ebbing away as the tiny Bethlehem school finds its footing and can see light at the top of the standings. They’ve had quality wins over Farmington, Colebrook (a first under Roy), and D-III Somersworth, but have yet to break through against the cream at the top – specifically Groveton, Littleton and Woodsville.

“We’ve been the worst team,” Roy said. “I got this job because nobody else wanted it. Everything we’ve done has been built by this group we have now. Like Josh said, we take it personally. Every team on our schedule we lost to before by 30 points. Colebrook beat us by 50 my first year. To beat them by 30 here, yes, that was good.

“We know who the perennial contenders are,” he added. “We know what we’re up against. I was never on a good team in high school. We haven’t been good here for a long time. But these kids are motivated.”

Back to work.

Have a story idea for Jam Session – email whaleym25@gmail.com.

Tyler Bike: It’s gotta be the genes

By: Mike Whaley

If you’ve seen Tyler Bike play basketball and you’re unaware of his family’s impressive gene pool, you’d still agree he’s pretty darn good. But if you knew about the gene pool, you might just say to yourself, “Well, that certainly explains that.” Which, of course, it does, except genes alone don’t get the job done. Tyler Bike knows that.

Bike is a 5-foot-11 junior guard for the Trinity High School boys team, coached by his dad, Keith Bike. Keith played his college ball at NCAA Division I University of Hartford, where he was a solid four-year player. Keith’s dad is Dave Bike, who was the head men’s hoop coach at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut, for 35 years. His teams won 528 games including the NCAA Division II national title in 1986. Before he became a coach, Dave spent eight summers playing baseball in the Detroit Tigers’ minor league system.

Tyler Bike is pictured with his sister, Keira, and his parents, Stephanie Schubert and Keith Bike. [Courtesy photo]

On the other side of the family, Tyler’s mom, Stephanie Schubert, was a basketball star at Manchester Central HS. She later walked on at the University of New Hampshire, eventually becoming a scholarship player and a team captain.

Stephanie’s dad, Steve Schubert, was also a star athlete at Manchester Central HS. He played football at the University of Massachusetts, earning All-American honors as a wide receiver. After that, he spent six years in the National Football League with the New England Patriots (1974) and the Chicago Bears (1975 to 1979). Steve is listed by Sports Illustrated as one of New Hampshire’s greatest sports figures of the 20th century.

“That’s why they pay for racehorses – the blood on both sides,” Dave Bike said. “There’s good athletic blood on both sides.”

Some pretty good athletic knowledge, too.

“After games, after anything you get different opinions on how you played,” Tyler said. “There’s diversity in it. My grandfather on my dad’s side has that basketball background. He’ll probably give me more on the basketball aspect of the game. My mom, my dad, my other grandfather, they all know as well. Having all those different opinions help me. I get to kind of choose which ones will help me more than the other ones.”

Tyler Bike is pictured with his legendary grandfathers last week after Trinity won the Queen City Invitational Basketball Tournament championship over Bedford, 64-60. To the left is Dave Bike and to the right is Steve Schubert. [Courtesy photo]

Led by Tyler, Trinity is pretty good, too, but it can get better. At 2-2 in Division I, however, they are not the same team that earned the top seed in last year’s D-I tournament. Those Pioneers lost just one game, running the postseason table to win the 2021 crown with a dramatic 64-62 victory over No. 3 Goffstown.

Gone from that team are four key players, including graduated senior Andrew Politi. Two other players transferred – Mark Nyomah (Manchester Central) and Max Shosa (Manchester West). A fourth potential starter decided not to play.

That leaves Tyler to lead the team with classmate DeVohn Ellis. Three sophomores and three freshmen play key roles behind the two juniors. 

There have been some early struggles, but the year ended on a good note when Trinity won the Queen City Invitational Basketball Tournament with three straight wins. In the final, the Pioneers beat a very good Bedford team, 64-60, behind 25 points from Tyler who was named Tournament MVP.

That balloon of euphoria popped on Tuesday with a 63-60 loss to Manchester Memorial as the Pioneers renewed their D-I schedule in the new year.

Last year, Tyler was the point guard, a first-team D-I All-State pick as a sophomore. He was able to orchestrate the championship run by getting the ball to the many scoring options, most notably Politi, Nyomah and Ellis. This year, his dad wants him to score more. Although his performance at the Queen City tournament is a good sign that he may be stepping into that role, it was a challenge in the early going in D-I. 

“I’ve been shooting terribly,” he said on the eve of the Queen City tourney. “I just need to go into every game with the pass-first mindset. I think as the game goes on it will start to come to me. I’ve been trying to force it recently out of the gate to get my shot going.”

His dad agrees. “He’s pressing a little bit too much to score because we need him to.”

Fortunately, Tyler is a teenage athlete who is striving to get better. He recognizes his shortcomings and embraces advice.

“That’s the best thing about him,” said Keith, who is in his fourth year coaching at Trinity and his 14th coaching at the high school or college level. “He’s not walking around thinking he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. He’s always willing to improve and get better.”

Coach Bike in the Sacred Heart huddle versus Central Connecticut back on Jan. 21, 2012. (Courtesy SHU Athletics)

For Dave Bike, watching his grandson play for his son is more nerve-wracking than when he played or coached. “It’s tough,” he said. “Fortunately they’re doing a heck of a job, both playing and coaching.”

Dave said when he was growing up, his dad was tough on him. “We talked about the game. But I listened. I wanted to improve.”

Keith and Tyler both embrace Dave’s advice. “That’s the thing I appreciate,” Dave said. “As tough as it is for them to listen to me after a game, I try to be as positive as possible. When I talk to Tyler I think that’s what’s going to make him a really good player and get better. He’s willing to listen. He wants to improve. Keith, too.”

Dave can recall playing a great game in high school and his dad zeroing in on an opposing player taking the ball from Dave. “My father was right,” he said. “What did that have to do with playing well?’

Dave thinks Keith and Tyler are from the same mold. “They’re willing to accept the criticism, rather than fight it,” he said. “Rather than make excuses. I hope they know I appreciate all the good that they’re doing. Being able to say ‘wait a minute, I want to get better.’ How do I get better is not only built on the positive, but try to eliminate as many negatives.”

Keith still embraces his dad’s advice as a coach, the same way he did as a player. He recalls a high school game, similar to his dad’s story, when he played at Xaverian in Middleton, Connecticut, and he had 30 points and 10 assists versus powerful Hillhouse. His dad, however, questioned why he let an opposing player take the ball from him. “I think that made me a better player,” Keith said. “Getting that from a different angle, where a lot of parents aren’t able to do that. They don’t have that knowledge of the game.”

Not like Dave Bike. “How many fathers are national coach of the year in Division II and have over 500 wins at the college level?” Keith asked. “I think he knows what he’s talking about.

“It helps me now just coaching my own team,” he said. “I call him after every game. He watches most of the games online. He tells me things I didn’t even see myself. That’s very helpful.”

Growing up, Keith certainly soaked in being the son of a college coach, starting as a ball boy for Dave’s team. “I was the slowest kid every time I stepped on the court,” Keith said. “I had a good knowledge of the game. A lot of that had to do with me watching my dad’s teams and players growing up. Just being the kid on the bench.”

Keith said it was a different generation – no Nintendo. No video games. “I’m just sitting on the bench watching every game, every practice,” he said. “After they were finished I was able to get on the court and shoot. Actually, when I was older my dad let me participate in practices and certain drills when I was good enough.”

Oddly enough, while Keith looked forward to coaching his son, Dave did not. Keith remembers getting recruited by his dad’s assistant at Sacred Heart without Dave knowing. “My dad never wanted to coach me,” Keith recalled. “He was in that mindset.”

Dave, even now, remains unsure about coaching his son. “I still don’t know what the right thing to do is,” he said. “I backed off. He could have come here (to Sacred Heart) and played for me. I tried to talk to a number of people and I still don’t know what the right thing to do is.”

Dave knows this: “It worked out well for him and Tyler last year. I guess it worked out well for Keith being his own man.”

Although Keith never played for his dad, he did coach with him. After he graduated from Hartford, he spent seven years as an assistant coach at Sacred Heart under Dave.

As for coaching his son, Keith said, “I have a different mindset. I want to coach my kid.”

He first did it in middle school when Tyler was in seventh grade. Keith was not pleased with that outcome. “I was really hard on him,” he said. “I felt I was too hard on him. That wasn’t helping.”

Keith had run into that problem at his first head coaching job at Manchester Memorial High School from 2005 to 2008. “I was a little too tough on the kids,” he said. “I came directly from college so I was expecting them to be college ready. You learn a lot as you coach – more experiences give you the opportunity to grow.”

It comes back to sage advice from his dad. “Once you think you’ve learned it all, that’s when you’re going to be in trouble,” recalled Keith.

Still, if Keith felt being hard on Tyler had a negative impact, his son thought the opposite. “No, it was great in middle school,” said Tyler, who was the only seventh-grader on the A team. “It kind of gave me an awakening. He had to be a little harder on me than the other kids. That kind of helped me.”

Once Tyler got to high school, Keith laid it out: “I told him, listen, I’m going to play the best players. If you’re one of the best players, you’re going to play.” Keith told the same thing to Ellis and Nyomba. “If you’re ready, you’re going to play,” he said. “If you’re not, you’re not going to play. And they were ready.”

Things have run smoothly at Trinity. The father-son thing has not been a distraction. “I’ve been lucky,” Keith said. “My kid has been one of the best players in the state the last couple of years. I’ve also been lucky to have great parents and lucky that he’s a great kid and the parents like him. The players like him. There haven’t been any issues – knock on wood.”

“(Tyler) was ready to be good. He wanted to be good,” his dad said. “I didn’t have to do much. That’s something my father taught me. If you’re going to do this, you’re going to do this right. I think he’s prepared himself.”

The Schuberts like what they see in Tyler as well. “He’s a real hard worker,” said his mom. “He doesn’t take anything for granted. He works really hard to be the best that he can be. I think that’s what impresses me the most about him.”

Although Stephanie and Keith are no longer together, they have maintained an amicable relationship and remain close geographically. She lives in Merrimack and Keith in Bedford with his new family – wife, Cortney, and their four young children. Stephanie and Keith have an older daughter, Keira, who played four years of basketball at Merrimack HS, where she graduated in 2021.

When Stephanie talks to her son about basketball, leadership is one topic she stresses. “How can he be the best leader dealing with all the personalities on the court?” she said. “He’s a point guard and he’s just by nature a leader.” 

Like his mom, who was a point guard at UNH.

“A lot of the conversations we’ve had over the last couple of years are how can you get the most out of your teammates,” Stephanie said. “The psychology around being a good leader. And defense – I always tried to be the defensive player. I always tell him that defense will bring offense to you.”

Steve Schubert NFL trading card from 1977

Steve Schubert is just having a blast following his grandson’s evolution as an athlete. “I like to watch him play, watch him grow and watch him become a man,” Steve said.

He doesn’t offer too much in the way of advice, other than to say “it’s just a matter of staying in shape, working hard, being a good person and being a good student,” Steve said. “And enjoying what he’s doing and what he’s accomplishing. I think it’s excellent.”

Steve played basketball at Central – the classic football guy on the hoop team. One of his teammates was a fellow named Stan Spirou, who went on to a successful career coaching the men’s hoop team at Southern New Hampshire University (640 wins in 33 years).

Offense was not a big part of Steve’s game. He was a rebounder and defender first and foremost. When he watches a game, his focus is on the stuff done in the trenches, like he did back in the day. “I just sit there and say they’ve got to box out,” Steve said. “Basics. Just put a body on somebody and box out. You’re not trying to hurt anybody. You’re just trying to get position. That’s all you’re trying to do. That’s important. Keith says that. I hear him. That’s a big thing.”

He also knows a thing or two about playing at the next level. A point he makes and everyone agrees on, including his grandson, is that Tyler needs to get stronger. “Be smart. Don’t screw up your shot,” Steve said. “But get stronger.” Tyler has a strength and conditioning program that he uses, which was set up by his cousin and Steve’s nephew, Charlie Schubert.

One big asset that Tyler has from his Schubert side is speed. “He got that from his other grandfather,” Dave Bike said. “None of the Bikes could run. They used to say I ran in the same spot too long.”

The next level is on Tyler’s radar. He has goals. “My dream school is Villanova,” he said. “That’s what I’m shooting for. I just need to work hard and I think I’ll be able to get there.”

When he lists what he needs to do to get to the college level, getting stronger is right there at the top – along with becoming smarter and a more consistent shooter. “Those are the three things that kind of stand out for me,” Tyler said

Keith can see his son at the next level as the 5-foot-11 point guard that he is. “I watch college basketball and see 5-11 point guards controlling the game,” Keith said. “I can see him doing that. He’s got to get better. He knows that.”

Stephanie adds: “He’s a very level-headed kid. He’s very, very smart. He respects the people who offer him all this great advice. He kind of sits on it and continues to work on his game. He doesn’t let it rattle him; the fact he has all these Schuberts and Bikes telling him some of the things he has to do better. He soaks it all in.”

Tyler laughs, admitting that there are moments when he experiences family-advice overload. “There’s definitely times when I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “I’m like, ‘all right, no one say anything. Let me go to my room.’”

Which, of course, is all part of the learning process.

Have a story idea for Jam Session – email whaleym25@gmail.com.

The Aura of Alton: Pioneer program helped change perception of girls’ hoop

By Mike Whaley

(Note: Little Alton High School was the state’s first small-school girls basketball power in the 1970s. They won three state championships in four years, amassing at one stretch a 64-game winning streak. It seems fitting to recall those Alton pioneers on the 50th anniversary of Title IX – the 1972 federal anti-discrimination, civil rights law, which helped to close the athletic gender gap and led to a considerable increase in the number of females participating in organized sports in high schools and universities. Quotes from the main Alton players are from a 1988 story that appeared in the old Rochester (N.H.) Courier. None of the women responded to recent requests for comment for this story.)

In the 1970s, girls sports in New Hampshire were finally getting their due. Basketball was the first major team sport to have a sanctioned season and tournament under the auspices of the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) in 1969-70. By the end of the decade field hockey, softball, volleyball and soccer would be added.

By the end of the 1976-77 season, the Alton girls had run their winning streak to 64 games. Their streak ended in the Class A championship game to Oyster River by three points. In the front, from left, are Liz Blackadar, Darlene Dore, Beth Downing, Liz McCahan, Donna Lance, Julie Jones, (back) assistant coach Bob Pride, Sue Peckham, Arlene DeJager, Diane DeJager, Cathy Jones, Amy Birdsey, Pam Smith, manager Cathy Lee and head coach Herb McCoy. Missing is Elaine Thomas. [Courtesy photo]

In doing so, the girls left behind the restrictive dark ages of 6-on-6 basketball to embrace 5 on 5, as played by the boys.

In the early NHIAA years the girls game was considered to be mostly ponderous. However, one little school in Alton, near the southern tip of Lake Winnipesaukee, was a pioneer in developing a basketball style that still resonates to this day. Alton blazed a high-octane trail for future small-school programs. Those great Henniker teams in the 1980s, Groveton squads in the 1990s and 2000s, and the Sunapee girls in the 2000s and 2010s, you could see a little bit of Alton in all of them.

Those 1970s’ Alton teams, coached by Frank Weeks, ran the court, pressed and played at a pace that was ahead of its time. They had size, speed, played tenacious defense and could score. The Apaches, in their trademark Columbia blue uniforms, altered the perception of girls’ basketball in N.H..

They proved that the girls’ game could be every bit as exciting as the boys’ game.

Weeks laid the groundwork in 1969 when he started the Alton junior high girls’ hoop program. He had some experience having coached the Alton HS boys JV team for two years, working with his good friend Dave Smith, an Alton grad who coached the varsity. Once Amy Birdsey and Pam Smith transitioned from cheerleading to basketball, they teamed with classmate Diane DeJager to form the core of the greatness to come, along with Diane’s younger sister, Arlene.

That first year the 6-on-6 game was still being played, which Weeks struggled to coach. He recalls one game with Northwood in which they won, 6-5, and all the points were scored from the foul line.

The old game was restrictive in that three players stayed on the offensive end and three on the defensive end. One player for each team was a rover and could travel to both sides of the court. Only two dribbles were allowed after which one had to pass or shoot.

It certainly stunted player growth. “Players couldn’t develop all the skills – dribbling, rebounding,” Smith said. “That changed once girls could use the full floor.”

The 1973-74 Alton High school girls basketball team went 14-2 and lost in the Class A semifinals to neighboring Pittsfield. Then freshmen, Diane DeJager (20), Pam Smith (5) and Amy Birdsey figured prominently in the Apaches rising to the top of the Class A basketball world over the next three years. Coach Frank Weeks is pictured back, second from the left. [Courtesy photo]

In 1972-73, with that nucleus now in eighth grade, the Alton girls went 21-0. That year they challenged the Alton HS varsity to a scrimmage. The game was stopped at the half with the junior high girls in front.

THE BIRTH OF A HOOP POWER

Weeks was offered the high school job. He accepted the position, inheriting a team that had gone 2-13 the previous season. With Birdsey, Smith and Diane DeJager coming in as freshmen, Alton’s fortunes were about to improve.

Weeks built his team around those young players, cutting juniors and seniors to make room for the influx of youth. Although that move was met with resistance, it paid quick dividends.

“The kids really worked,” said Weeks, who taught science at area schools from 1967 to 2008, and has retired to Gilmanton Iron Works, a short drive from Alton. “They committed so much.”

A picture of Alton’s Amy Birdsey driving for a layup graced the cover of the 1977 NHIAA girls basketball tournament program. Also in the frame were teammates Pam Smith (5) and Arlene DeJager (22). [Courtesy photo]

In the early 1970s, girls rarely played out of season – except Alton, who was ahead of the curve. What they did then is a necessity today if teams want to be successful. The girls played in the summer and often with the boys in the gym and on outdoor courts. They also competed in a summer league with the neighboring towns from Pittsfield, Gilmanton and Weir, as well as going to a weekend hoop camp at Assumption College in Massachusetts.

“The girls really learned a lot playing against the boys,” Weeks said. “The girls got used to a fast game. They had positive attitudes and dedication. There were no distractions. Basketball was it.”

“They were very focused,” said Smith, the headmaster at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy and the dean of high school coaches in New Hampshire. He has been coaching at either the high school or middle school level since 1967. He has been the head coach for the Coe-Brown boys since 1990. “They were just as competitive as any boys team that I have had – maybe more so. That particular nucleus was very competitive. And they were great kids and good students.”

In addition to playing regularly during the summer months and with and against the boys, there were several other factors that set the Apaches up for success. First and foremost they had talent, and that talent stayed together. Second, because Weeks had coached most of the girls in junior high, the transition to high school was seamless. What they were doing in junior high was the same as high school with the same coach. They quite literally hit the floor running. Alton played a fast-paced style with pressing and fast-breaking. It was not something many girls’ teams did in that era. Most teams played a deliberate half-court game, which included sitting in a 2-1-2 zone on defense. Games were low-scoring, often played in the teens and 20s.

Alton stirred the pot. Suddenly you had this quick, young team that was pushing the pace with their exciting brand of basketball. They were all over the floor scoring 40, 50 and sometimes 60 points in a game. They were raising the bar for girls basketball.

After beating Hillsboro-Deering for the 1975 Class A girls basketball championship, 49-24, at Saint Anselm College, the Alton girls were presented the game ball by Saint A’s athletic director Ted Palauskas. Pictured during the presentation are, from left, Diane DeJager, Cathy Jones, Amy Birdsey, Doreen Dore, Pam Smith and Palauskas. [Courtesy photo]

Uniforms were an issue, as they were for many girls’ teams. Alton wore onesies – a shirt attached to the short. It was an utterly ridiculous athletic fashion statement. Diane and Arlene’s dad, Peter DeJager, approached Weeks about getting new uniforms. Weeks was adamant that there was no money for such a purchase.  Mr. DeJager was well-to-do. He suggested a fried chicken dinner with a quilt to be also raffled off, saying that should pay for the uniforms. Weeks knew better. It was Mr. DeJager who footed most of the bill. The team got home and away jerseys, shorts, knee socks and warm-up jackets. The home jersey was a light or Columbia blue – Weeks said no to white tops because you could see the players’ bras through them. The away tops were a darker blue. “We looked pretty slick,” Weeks said.

The first game of the season was played on the road in the old bandbox gym at Raymond. Alton scored 33 points in the first half, which was almost unheard of for girls. “That’s when we realized we were decent,” Weeks said.

While coaching the high school varsity, Weeks continued to coach the junior high girls as well, which he did until 1977. That team, led by Arlene Dejager went 18-0, giving the team a 39-0 record over two years.

The high school team, starting three freshmen, had a banner season. The Apaches went 14-2 overall, losing in the Class A semifinals by three points to eventual champion Pittsfield. Weeks had explicitly told the team no skiing during the tournament. One starter said she sprained her ankle at home and could not play. After the loss, she confessed she had gone skiing, against Weeks’ wishes, and had injured herself there. 

“That was kind of disappointing to have that happen,” Weeks said. “We had lost by three, but the kids felt pretty good about that.”

When the girls got back to the school they were yelling and screaming. Boys’ coach Dave Smith figured they had won. “No, we lost,” Weeks said. Smith responded: “They don’t look like they’re losers.”

But as Weeks noted, “They were happy to be there. They kind of knew what was going to happen.”

The beginning of the 1974-75 season, the lineup was set for the next three years with five sophomores and a freshman making up the key players. Birdsey, Smith and the DeJagers were regular starters with Cathy Jones and Elaine Thomas as reliable role players rotating at the fifth position.

Alton’s Arlene DeJager, left, scrambles for a loose ball with Hillsboro-Deering’s Cathy Flanders during the 1975 Class A championship game. [Courtesy photo]

Birdsey and Smith made up the speedy backcourt; Smith as the point guard and Birdsey the off or shooting guard. Both were outstanding ball handlers, who could score and play defense. Birdsey had a nice outside touch and Smith was a good passer with an offensive penchant for sinking long-range shots, a dozen years before the 3-pointer changed the high school basketball landscape forever.

Diane DeJager, at 5-foot-9, was the team’s best all-around player and the catalyst. “She was very serious about what she did,” Weeks said. “She was the bond for the whole team by the way she played.”

Diane had an impressive 23-inch vertical leap when most girls elevated in the 8- to 12-inch range. That made her a force on the boards and inside on offense. She also had a credible outside touch and could handle the ball. “She was all-around,” said Weeks, who compared her game to WNBA and former UConn star Breanna Stewart. “She could do everything.”

Had there been a Miss New Hampshire Basketball back then, Weeks is convinced Diane would have won the award.

Arlene DeJager was the Apaches tallest player at 5-foot-10. Not as much of an offensive presence as her sister, she more than made up for it with her strong defense and ability to rebound. “She was tough,” coach Weeks said. “She was physically very strong. She came to work. She was also very modest, like her sister.”

Jones and Thomas were consummate role players. They didn’t need to score, but pitched in with solid defense.

The first game of the season, a 22-19 loss at Weare in December of 1974, was significant for one major reason – the Apaches never scored less than 40 points after that and would not lose again until the 1977 Class A championship game.

The little Alton Central School gymnasium where Alton dominated small-school girls basketball in the 1970s is still in use for students in pre-kindergarten through Grade 8. High school students now go to Prospect Mountain HS, which opened its doors in 2004 and also welcomes students from neighboring Barnstead. [Courtesy photo]

In between, Alton won two state championships and streaked to 64 consecutive wins. Birdsey and Diane DeJager each eclipsed the 1,000-point mark, and Smith wasn’t far off with 972. Today points from holiday tournaments are included in milestone totals. Back then, they were treated as the exhibition games they were, and not included in 1,000-point totals. Weeks said Smith may well have surpassed 1,000, but in 1974-75 the book was not brought to two holiday tournament games.

Arlene DeJager, who graduated a year later than the Alton core, was not a prolific scorer like her sister, but boy could she rebound. Weeks noted that she had over 1,000 career rebounds, a rarity in any era. She also played in four consecutive championship games, including 1978 when Alton went 21-2 overall to win the inaugural Class S championship over Sunapee, 53-44. It was the program’s last title.

Girls basketball in N.H. started off with one division for the whole state in 1969-70. In 1971-72 it shifted two two divisions (Class AA and Class A), and in 1977-78 it changed to the current four-division format – Class L, I, M and S, which is now Division I, II, III, IV.

Weeks recalls that 1974 Weare game. The bus was late, and game officials decided to shave the eight-minute quarters to six. Weeks also made the decision not to press because of their late arrival. It all added up to an ugly loss.

After the defeat, the team dared Weeks to grow his hair and not shave until they lost again. His locks grew long and he had a full beard as the Apaches went on a significant win streak, which eventually found them in the Class A championship game at Saint Anselm College against Hillsboro-Deering.

Along the way they played Weare again, at home this time, and won by 15 points, despite the absence of Birdsey who missed six games with an ankle injury. This time they did press and it baffled Weare.

The legacy of Alton High School’s championship teams of the 1970s and 1980s, including the three girls basketball squads, remain a part of town history on a banner that adorns the Alton Central School gym wall. [Courtesy photo]

There was also an impressive win at a holiday tournament over Belmont, who was unbeaten at the time. Alton’s press befuddled the Raiders, who found themselves down 44-14 at the half. Belmont coach John Garneau said to Weeks, “Frank, those (Belmont) girls thought you were pressing inside the locker room.”

“We thrived off the press,” said Weeks, using a 1-2-2 with Diane DeJager at the point. “Many of the games were over by halftime. A lot of girls couldn’t handle the press. We really couldn’t handle the press either. Amy and Pam just dribbled through everyone.”

From Smith’s perspective, the Alton girls “played like an aggressive boys team. Most of the girls’ teams then did not. If you pressed in girls basketball and you couldn’t make that first pass over someone, you were going to lose. They were so aggressive upfront. Many of those teams didn’t have the skill level to break that press.”

The tournament provided a couple of tense moments. In the second round, Alton needed overtime to beat Sanborn. With several players having fouled out, Weeks looked to his bench, sending in Thomas, a quick defensive specialist who could not shoot. She surprisingly responded by scoring four of the team’s six points in overtime to lead them to the win. Thomas is Weeks’ dental hygienist. Her big scoring moment is something they both enjoy recalling whenever Weeks is in to have his teeth checked.

In the semis vs. Groveton, it was a close game at the half. In the locker room, Birdsey revealed that she had worn new socks the previous game and had them on for this game, instead of her lucky used socks that she had worn all season. As it happened, she had the used socks in her gym bag. Her teammates vehemently insisted that she put them on, and Alton went on to win the game.

The championship was tight at the half, with Alton up 20-14 over the Hillcats. But in the third quarter, Smith and Birdsey combined for 14 points to spark an 18-0 surge that put the game out of reach – 38-14 after three quarters. The Apaches cruised to a 49-24 win to capture the Class A state title. Smith led the way with a then championship-record 19 points, followed by Birdsey’s 14.

Saint A’s Athletic Director Ted Palauskas presented the game ball to the Alton girls, all of whom hugged him. They all knew Palauskas, since he ran the aforementioned basketball camp at Assumption that the team had attended over the summer.

For better or for worse, the Apache was Alton Central School’s mascot from 1959 to 2019. [Courtesy photo]

Alton had arrived. It had won the state title playing with sophomores and a freshman. The future seemed bright.

After the season, the Lion’s Club honored the girls with a banquet and, to everyone’s surprise, presented them with championship jackets. Now, of course, jackets and/or rings are expected spoils for champions, but back then it was not on anyone’s radar – well, except for the thoughtful Lion’s Club.

CHANGE AND CONTINUED SUCCESS

Weeks resigned as coach on the eve of the 1975-76 season. He’d coached many of the girls for six years. He questioned their obligation to the team versus socializing on weekends. Some of the girls saw things differently. They felt what they did on the weekends was no concern of the school or coach Weeks. “They were good kids, but they kind of outgrew me,” he said.

Weeks was replaced by Herb McCoy, the school board chairman, who coached the team for the next two seasons.

The coaching change did nothing to affect how the Apaches played. Everything the girls had learned under Weeks was in place and they continued to successfully execute it under McCoy.

Alton waltzed through the regular season unbeaten, and then roared through the tournament. They capped an unbeaten season with a commanding 53-35 win over Groveton in the ‘76 final at New Hampshire College (now SNHU). In four tournament games the Apaches scored a total of 242 points, which remained a small-school tournament standard until 2010.

It looked like the 1976-77 would go the same way. Birdsey, Smith and Diane DeJager were now seniors. The Apaches won their first 21 games to extend the winning streak to 64. They had transformed from David to Goliath. Standing in the way of a three-peat was another unbeaten team from Oyster River, who Alton had beaten in the previous year’s semifinals by 19 points.

“When they beat us in the semifinals in 1976, we dedicated the ‘77 season to put ourselves in a position to play Alton again,” said OR coach Cathy Coakley in 1988. 

Most of what Oyster River did in practice, it did with Alton in mind. If the OR girls were breaking the press in practice, it was Alton’s press. If they worked on controlling a fastbreak, it was Alton’s fastbreak. If they were shooting foul shots, those foul shots were taken against Alton.

The Bobcats had a practice drill for the last two minutes of the game. The game was always played against Alton. “All situations were geared towards Alton,” said Coakley, who lost her battle with cancer in 2019 at age 69. She recalls scouting Alton three times that season during an era when teams did very little scouting. “We felt the need to see what Alton was doing.”

Coakley guided OR to the inaugural Class M title in 1978 and later coached the women’s team at Fordham University.

Oyster River was clearly prepared for Alton. It paid off as they upset the Apaches for the Class A title, 49-46.

It was a disappointing finish for Alton’s senior class. “I was crushed after the game,” said Birdsey. “It was a frustrating way to end and when I look back on it it still makes me mad.” She fouled out late in the game on an admittedly foolish violation, tripping a girl for her fifth foul.

“It was a heartbreaker,” Diane DeJager said. “As much as you prepare for the possibility of losing, it was still a heartbreak. You just hoped for the best.”

AFTERMATH

Alton basketball never again approached that 1970s’ level. Arlene’s senior year brought the third championship in four years, capping a five-year run in which the Apaches went 99-6. Although Alton never won another title, they remained a fixture in the tournament, making runner-up finishes in 1980, 1981, 1983 and 1992. Alton combined with Barnstead to form Prospect Mountain HS in 2004. At the time, Apache teams had made 31 consecutive playoff appearances, the longest streak in the state regardless of class.

The little gym remains in use at Alton Central School, which is now home for the town’s pre-K through Grade 8 students. Those championship girls’ hoop teams and other Alton champs, mostly from the 1970s and 1980s, are honored with a legacy banner on the gym wall entitled – “A Tribute To Our History.”

Weeks remembers Friday nights in the packed Alton gym. It seemed like the whole town was wedged into every corner of its steamy confines. “There was nothing else basically to do,” he said, referring to an era light years before electronic devices and social media.

On those packed gym nights, Diane told Weeks that she never noticed the crowd – except the noisy ones like Weeks and her dad.

What one has to remember about Alton the mid 1970s is that it was one of the smallest schools in Class A, which was a combination of the small- and medium-sized schools. With 100 high school students, it was not unusual for the Apaches to play against schools that were two or three times larger. In the case of Oyster River, Alton was matching up against a school that was nearly five times its size. In the context of the times, it makes Alton’s accomplishments on the hardwood even more impressive.

Basketball slowly faded from that team’s collective consciousness once they moved on. Amy played during her junior year at Plymouth State University, but was the only one to do so. Diane was on a competitive women’s crew team at Ithaca College in New York for two years. Arlene tried volleyball as a freshman at Keene State, before moving on to get a degree at the University of New Hampshire.

Only Weeks, now 77, kept his hand in it, although he was never a high school varsity head coach again. He coached basketball at various levels until 1993, and still keeps busy coaching other sports. He has been a volunteer coach at Gilford High School for field hockey since 2000 and track and field since 2009. He has coached for nearly 50 years.

He still gets together with his old friend, Dave Smith, to swap old war stories – mostly, of course, about basketball.

The former Apaches are closing in on their mid 60s. Diane Jensen lives in Bow with her family, which runs Fieldhouse Sports, a multi-sport indoor facility. Amy Shibley and her husband operate a restaurant in Alton Bay – Shibley’s on the Pier. Arlene Gaskell is an electrologist in Hampton. Sadly, Pam Smith died from a stroke in 2018.

“I’d like to think they changed the perception of basketball for girls,” Weeks said. “They played like the boys. They were competitive and played very well.”

Well enough to impact the girls’ game for generations to come.

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