Category: Jam Session

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.

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

The Rivera sisters: All for one and one for all

By Mike Whaley

The Rivera family takes being together to a whole new level. All four children are enrolled at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. This past spring they all played a sport – the three sisters were on the Gordon softball team and Ismael, the son, suited up for the baseball squad.

The sisters’ dynamic has changed slightly this winter. Ami and Isabella are still teammates on the Scots’ women’s basketball team as they were for the second half of last winter. However, their older sister, Lily,  has been added to the mix as an assistant coach. That dynamic will remain the same in the spring on the softball diamond as Lily transitions from player to assistant coach.

Gordon went into the winter break with a record of 3-6. Ami is second on the team in scoring (12.3 ppg) while Isabella is fourth (8.7 ppg). Both sisters are pulling down four boards a game.

(Courtesy Gordon College)

Sports have always been a family affair. Growing up in Concord, the younger sisters were coached in basketball by Rob Darrell and their dad, Freddy, at the Concord Boys and Girls Club. Freddy was also his daughters’ travel softball coach, and coached all his daughters at Bishop Brady High School.

Sports and a Christ-centered upbringing has strengthened the family’s sense of togetherness, which starts with the parents – Freddy and Lydia. “We have a very good relationship with each other,” Freddy said. “(The sisters) love each other. They actually enjoy being around each other as well as my son. We’ve always been together as a family.”

Taking that a step further, Ami and Isabella are not only Gordon teammates but they are also roommates. “We are in the gym all the time,” Ami said. “We shoot together. We work out together. She’s my roommate. We pretty much spend all our time together.”

Although they all played two sports at Brady, there was never the opportunity for all three to play together. Lily was four years ahead of Ami and six ahead of Isabella. When she was a high school senior her sisters were still in middle school.

Ami and Isabella, however, were constant teammates at Brady in softball and basketball. They were key contributors to the school’s first state girls’ basketball championship team in 2021. The Giants beat Kennett in the Division II final, 52-50, on Isabella’s steal and layup in the waning seconds.

Three factors allowed the trio to play the one year together on the softball diamond at Gordon, and even for Isabella to team up last winter with Ami on the hoop hardwood.

Firstly, Isabella was able to test out of eighth grade and enroll as a high school freshman. Secondly, she was able to finish up her high school senior year at home during the first semester of 2021, thus allowing her to enroll at Gordon in January 2022 for the second half of the basketball season and, obviously, for softball.

Thirdly, because of the pandemic, Lily was granted an extra or fifth year by the NCAA to play softball in 2022. That made it possible to team up with her sisters. All three of those things had to happen for them to play together. 

The trio started, batted at the top of the Gordon lineup and actually were the team’s top three hitters: Ami (.385), Lily (.373) and Isabella (.347). Position-wise, Lily played second and third base, Ami was a catcher and shortstop and Isabella played most of the season in center field. The Scots finished with a 19-18-1 record.

Now they’re together again.

(Courtesy Gordon College)

Gordon hoop coach Carter Shaw has liked what he’s seen so far. “There is some trepidation when you have three siblings on one team,” he said. “There’s all sorts of things that could go wrong. They’re a really close family, so I wasn’t worried about that. Sometimes those dynamics can be challenging.”

Shaw deals with any difficult one-and-one conversations with Ami and Isabella. Which, he notes, is as it should be.

Lily has been a great addition to the staff. “She understands the game really well,” Shaw said. “She’s been around it. She’s coached it. This isn’t something she’s coming into brand new and has to figure out. … She has a really good sense of what we are doing and what we are trying to accomplish on the court.”

Shaw said that Lily comes in as a selfless person willing to work hard and do all the dirty work. “She’s doing the details,” he said. “She’s taking care of the stuff my assistants do. She does an awesome job.”

Lily enjoys the position, even though it requires a certain amount of juggling. She lives at home with her parents in Litchfield, N.H., and works full time in Stratham at KidStrong Academy, which helps parents build stronger, smarter, high-character children. KidStrong, however, is in the opposite direction of Gordon, 40 minutes from Lily’s home. That means there’s a lot of driving. “I’m a busy girl, but I manage my time well,” she said.

Lily wants to coach. That’s her end game. “I love being able to make a difference,” she said. “I’ve spent my whole life playing sports. I’ve spent my whole life on a team. I like being able to share that knowledge. I get to pass down that piece of it.”

She enjoys being around Ami and Isabella. “My sisters are hustlers,” she said. “They work hard. They are super fun to coach. They are everything you want. They are a coach’s dream.”

Her sisters embrace Lily’s presence. “She explains things very well,” Ami said. “She’s so positive. It’s good to have her around.”

Shaw is glad he has Ami and Isabella on his team. Ami is the point guard, while Isabella is a shooting or off guard.

“Ami’s a pretty strong point guard,” the coach said. “She can hit the 3-pointer. She can put the ball on the floor. She can attack off the dribble. She’s a great defender. She’s tough. She has a kind of warrior’s mentality. She goes on the attack. She’s going to get in your face. She can create shots for herself and her team.”

Isabella games kind of sneaks up on you. “When she gets on a roll, it’s almost impossible to stop her,” Shaw said. “The freedom that she plays with and the sense of joy that comes through with how she plays. When that happens, you can see her light up and you can see her game blossom every time. When she’s playing with a smile on her face, she’s deadly.”

Like her sister, Isabella can hit the three and score off the dribble. Her coach says she has a great pull-up jump shot.

When Isabella decided to graduate from high school early and enroll at Gordon in January, she needed to get a headstart learning the basketball plays. Ami provided valuable assistance over the holiday break. “Going to Gordon, it was a completely different level, but I already had a jump start,” Isabella said. “I had my dad helping me through that. I already had Ami teaching me what I should know about Gordon basketball in general going in.”

The first week and a half back, Isabella worked out with the team. She had Covid, but didn’t know it. It explained why she was extra tired during practices. On the way to their first game of 2022, they arrived at their destination only to find out one of them had covid. The team had to jump back on the bus and return to Gordon.

“And it ended up being me,” Isabella said.

On one hand, Isabella was happy to know there was an explanation for her shortness of breath. On the other hand, the whole team had to quarantine and games that first week had to be postponed while they recovered.

It meant that the next couple of weeks the Scots would be playing three games a week. “I didn’t mind that,” Isabella said. “Who doesn’t like games? But it was also harder without practice to get me in the flow of college basketball.”

Eventually, Isabella did get in a flow and was starting by the end of the season. She helped Gordon win seven of their final nine games (12-14 record overall) and advance to the Commonwealth Coast Conference tournament semifinals.

Ami played in all 26 games. She was second in scoring with a 13.3 average to go with 5.3 rebounds per game and 43 steals. Isabella played 17 games, averaging 6.3 points and 2.6 rebounds per game.

As talented as they are, the sisters are even better teammates. “They’re the first people to cheer for their teammates,” Shaw said. “They’re the first people off the bench. They just get excited about being on the court. They’re fun to coach. They’re easy to coach. They’re listening. They’re hard working. They just bring all that. You don’t have to challenge them to play harder.”

All for one and one for all.

Got a story idea for Jam Session – contact Whaley at whaleym25@gmail.com.

Tony Martinez

Tony Martinez: Embracing the next chapter

By Mike Whaley

Going forward in basketball, Tony Martinez is always reminded by what came before. It keeps the fire burning.

A former hoop star at Pittsfield High School and Plymouth State University, Martinez, 44, is embracing his first high school head coaching gig in Belmont, guiding the boys varsity basketball program. 

Martinez’s basketball journey has been neither traditional nor smooth. His eight years of high school and college basketball were marked by an unusually crazy stretch of seven consecutive years with a different coach – four at Pittsfield and three at PSU.

[ WATCH: Behind the scenes look at Belmont Basketball ]

Two games into his senior year at Pittsfield, he broke his foot in a game against Newmarket and missed the rest of the season.

To say there have been challenges for Martinez would be an understatement. While there has been some regret, he has used his experiences to be a better person and coach. He is applying that experience to his post at Belmont.

Pittsfield’s Martinez boxes out for a rebound at Farmington.

“I can relate,” said Martinez, who replaced long-time coach Jim Cilley. “My experience as a player and all the ups and downs I’ve experienced helps me as far as relating to the kids. I was there once.”

Martinez said he knows what it’s like to not want to do homework and just focus on basketball. “I know all the little intricacies so I can communicate with the guys better,” he said. “I’m comfortable with my basketball knowledge. You always have to learn. You always have to study.”

Martinez graduated from Pittsfield HS in 1997. He played at PSU from 1997 to 2001, scoring over 1,000 points and twice earning Little East Conference First Team honors. 

After Plymouth, he coached for two years at Brewster Academy under Jason Smith, his coach during his final year at Pittsfield. After taking some time off, he got back into coaching at Plymouth State University as an assistant for one season (2014-15).

At that point, the eldest of his two sons, Keegan, was showing interest in basketball, so he started coaching him at the youth level. He continues to do that with his younger son, Evan.

In 2016, Martinez joined his friend and former teammate, Jay Darrah, the head coach at Pittsfield, as an assistant. He did that for three seasons, which included 2017-18 in which the Panthers won the program’s first state championship (a 43-40 win over Newmarket in the D-IV final).

Martinez drives baselien at Plymouth State.

Darrah said Martinez’s presence immediately resonated with the Panthers. “Any time you have someone come into the program that has his name up on the 1,000-point board, and his name is up on the 1,000-point board at Plymouth State where we go every year to watch the tournament played, he instantly gains stability with the players,” Darrah said. “They look up to him. Players that worked with Tony had instant admiration. When you have that admiration for someone like that, you play a little harder, you work a little harder. When he was in there working with the big guys at practices was huge. The stuff he did with Brandon Bojarsky and Josh Whittier was vital to our tournament run. His experience as a player gave the players more reason to believe in what he was saying. There was more buy-in.”

Martinez’s return to Pittsfield resonated with him as much as it resonated with the players. “Winning that state championship gave me closure on what happened my senior year,” he said. “It’s kind of corny, but it’s the truth.”

It also opened his eyes to coaching. “Winning that state championship with one of my best friends and his son really motivated me to want to be a varsity basketball coach,” Martinez said. 

Before Pittsfield, Martinez had been content to be an assistant or, as he called it, a “basketball mercenary.” In that role, he would simply float around to various programs helping their big guys to improve their game while imparting his wisdom on his college experience.

Also, there was a point when he was starting a family with his wife, Jodie, and building their first home, so the mercenary coaching gig fit his schedule.

But after his second Pittsfield experience, he was ready for the next step.

PLAYING THE GAME

Martinez grew up in Barnstead. He recalls playing hotly contested games against neighboring Pittsfield teams, which featured Jay Darrah and other future high school teammates. “Middle school is where I decided I wanted to become a good basketball player,” he said.

Which he did.

He started as a freshman at Pittsfield, and by his junior season had transformed into one of the best players in Class M/Division III. Martinez averaged 28 points and 15 rebounds per game, hitting his 1,000th career point. He drew some local NCAA Division II interest and plenty from D-III.

But when he broke his foot as a senior, that interest melted away. “Paul Hogan, to his credit,  was the one coach that let me heal – not just physically, but mentally,” Martinez said. “But that was a very hard thing to swallow not playing. It was hard.”

Jason Smith, who was in his first year as a head high school coach at the time in Pittsfield, remembers how Martinez handled the situation. “He quickly transitioned from a player to almost a student assistant coach,” said Smith, who has coached at Brewster since 2000 where he has transformed the Bobcat program into a national prep power. “He was still involved on a daily basis. He went to all the practices, all the games. He asked about helping with film breakdown, scouting reports. When he faced adversity that’s where he showed his future capacity of being a coach.”

Smith also coached Martinez in AAU as well as playing a small role in getting him to PSU when he was a Hogan assistant at Plymouth. 

Hogan did not pressure Martinez like several other local schools did. It also helped that Martinez wanted to play baseball as well in college. He had played two years for the American Legion team in Laconia coached by PSU’s long-time baseball coach Dennis McManus, so that was another mark in Plymouth’s favor. “I mostly chose Plymouth because Paul was such a great guy,” Martinez said. “I wanted to play for him.”

“It made him a stronger person,” Darrah said of the injury. “I think everything happens for a reason. It made him stay local. It made him have a successful career at Plymouth.”

Going to PSU proved to be a great decision by Martinez, although the coaching carousel was similar to Pittsfield’s where he played for four coaches (Kyle Hodsdon, Matt Swedberg, Dan Peters and Smith) in four years. Hogan left after his freshman year. Jim Ferry was his coach as a sophomore. Stability arrived with John Scheinman who was at the helm for his final two seasons.

By his own admission, Martinez did not have a great freshman year. “I played, but I didn’t play as much as I should have,” he said. “That’s cliche and not always good to hear. I always thought I could do more.”

Hogan left after Martinez’s freshman year; eventually elevating the men’s hoop program at NHTI Concord. Ferry came in and helped to set Martinez’s course for the remainder of his college career. He was still playing baseball at that point, but Ferry made it clear what he needed to do. He told Martinez he was going to start with four seniors, but he needed to drop baseball and focus on basketball.

“I credit Jim Ferry with really turning my career around at Plymouth,” Martinez said. “He made me really zero in and focus on basketball. He really taught me what work ethic at the college level needed to be.” Ferry is currently a NCAA Division I head coach at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Martinez did not have a traditional basketball body. To look at him in high school and even college, he resembled a football linebacker more than a basketball power forward. In high school he was 6-foot-3 and weighed 235-240 pounds. When he got to college he was able to trim himself down to 215 by his junior season.

“I was always a bigger kid,” he said. “I really had to model my game after (former NBA star) Charles Barkley. I loved Barkley when I was a kid. … I was undersized, but used everything to my advantage. I was a small-college Barkley. The Keene Sentinel dubbed me Barkley of the Little East.”

Martinez averaged 20.5 and 21.6 points per game, respectively, over his final two seasons when he developed his jump shot and added some three-point range to his repertoire. “With my inside game, that opened a lot of things up,” he said. 

Martinez ended his PSU career with 1,556 points, still good for fifth all-time at the school. In 2013, he was inducted into the PSU Athletic Hall of Fame.

COACHING COMES INTO FOCUS

Martinez was ready to make the leap. When the Belmont position opened up, he applied. It felt good. He lived with his family in Canterbury, a town that sends its high school students to Belmont. In addition, his mom is a Belmont native and his late grandfather was one of the original school board members who formed the Shaker Regional School District in the 1960s. “There’s some history and some lineage there,” Martinez said.

He also knew the kids. He’d been watching the current seniors play basketball since they were in eighth grade. “I knew of them,” he said. “I knew what they could do on the floor. I’ve watched them achieve. I’ve watched them underachieve. I’ve watched the whole gambit. I had a really good knowledge of what I was getting, coming into the program.”

Belmont went 8-10 last year, losing in the first round of the tournament at Campbell.

The first thing Martinez did before he applied was get the green light from his son, Keegan – a 6-foot-5 sophomore forward. “Before I submitted anything I asked him point blank ‘would you mind if I put this in?’” Martinez recalled. “That was the number one permission I needed because he’s the one who is going to have to deal with me. We have an honest and open relationship. If he said ‘no’, I wouldn’t have applied. I think he was excited. I think he knows what I can potentially bring to the table.”

Martinez also called up former Farmington HS coach Mike Lee, who guided the Tigers from 1977 to 1998. He coached both of his sons, Josh and Tim. “I’ve always respected Mike,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I have an internal hatred for Farmington. I’m still a Pittsfield Panther and I know what they did to me for four years. I’ve always respected Coach Lee. He’s one of those guys I would have loved to have played for.”

Martinez wanted to know how Lee dealt with his boys. “How did you do it, coach?” he asked. “What were the things that you did? He talked to me about rules and things they had as a family to make sure it wasn’t basketball all the time. I’ve taken a lot of that to heart. I’ve encouraged both my boys who are super athletes to do other things. I really think that is key. When you coach your child don’t make it about the sport all of the time.”

While some might think coaching your son is a difficult thing, Martinez feels the opposite. “I think it only amplifies it and makes it better, honestly,” he said. “I learned that by coaching with Jay (Darrah). I learned how to coach your son, coaching with Jay. I learned the dos and don’ts. Those were three huge seasons being with him.”

Martinez has no problem seeking advice. He has also reached out to Smith and Dave Gagnon, an assistant coach at the Holderness School. “It’s always a learning process,” he said.

“My biggest thing is getting to know the guys,” said Martinez, who runs the family business, Loudon Building Supply. “Teaching them and showing them the togetherness and things you need to be a championship caliber team. Our team motto is ‘We are one.’ We just want to come together and be one as a team.”

Martinez saw that at Pittsfield when the Panthers won the championship in 2018. “I’ve never been around a group of kids that wanted to win for each other so bad,” he said. “I think you see that in small towns. You grew up with each other.  Belmont is the same.”

One of Martinez’s main projects is building a cohesive unit. “The guys have responded to me great,” he said. “We’ve had great open gyms. We had a great summer. Tryouts were phenomenal. I’ve had texts from the guys telling me how excited they are. That for me shows that we’re pointed in the right direction.”

Tony Martinez is finally a head coach after 20 or so years marinating at various levels as an assistant and an independent instructor. It’s strange to think of him as a “first-year head coach.”

 “I think because he’s been part of so many programs, he’s probably been able to take a little bit from each coach he’s been a part of and become his own coach,” Darrah said. “He’s not your stereotypical first-year coach. He’s a coach with a lot of experience as a player and a lot of experience on the bench as an assistant coach.

“People talk about it before sometimes, great players don’t always make good coaches,” Darrah said. “In Tony’s case, I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think his experience as a high school player, his experience as a great collegiate player, is going to translate to the high school game. He sees how the game is played. He sees how the game works and how it unfolds. That’s going to give him a step up on a lot of the other coaches.”

Smith agrees. “It’s long overdue. I expected Tony to be coaching his own team years ago. He’s more than ready. I have no doubt he will be successful at Belmont.”

 

 

Championship Snapshots: Past hoop memories galore

By Mike Whaley

This week’s Jam Session hears from fans, coaches and former players and coaches as they recall special moments from past championship games.

There are quite a few varied takes. You have a celebratory bus ride past adoring townspeople; injuries overcome and deficits, too; a player standing on a rim after the game; a basket scored for the other team; a lucky nickel; trampoline dunking in practice the day before the final; and how about one win at a time all the way to 25-0 and a few other perfect thoughts. Let the memories begin!

Bill Douglas • 1971 Austin-Cate Academy

Bill Douglas, player, Austin-Cate Academy, 1971 Class S boys champs – With the Class S title in hand against Epping in the waning minutes at the University of New Hampshire, old Austin-Cate Academy of Center Strafford cleared the bench, recalled Douglas, the team’s star guard. Freshman Eddie Maccarelli made a steal and blazed down the floor in the final seconds, laying the ball in just before the buzzer – but in the other team’s basket. Final score: ACA 66, Epping 55. Douglas said he later found out that if Macarelli, who he dubbed “Wrong Way,” had scored for Austin-Cate the Wildcats would have tied the Class S record for most points by a winning team in a championship game with 68. Maccarelli is the only Austin-Cate player to have played on the school’s two state championship hoop teams. He was also on the 1974 title team as a senior. ACA made four trips to the Class S championship during a five-year span in the early 1970s. The school closed in 1980.

Frank Weeks, coach, Alton, 1975 Class A girls champs – Weeks recalls in the ‘75 final vs. Hillsboro-Deering, Alton led by just 20-14 at the half. However, they had a huge 18-0 surge in the third quarter that propelled them to a convincing 49-24 championship win – the first of three championships in four years. Alton, which became part of Prospect Mountain HS with Barnstead in 2004, won again in 1976, lost in the 1977 final and won in 1978, along the way building a 64-game winning streak. Two of its players – Amy Birdsey and Diane DeJager – scored over 1,000 points, and a third, Pam Smith, had over 970. A fourth, Arlene Dejager, a force on the boards, recorded over 1,000 career rebounds. Weeks also recalls at practice the day before the championship, he felt they were well prepared and there was nothing else to be done to get ready for the game. So he let the girls pull out the trampoline and the team spent the rest of the practice working on their dunks. “It was a very good group of young ladies,” Weeks said. “They were physically talented and committed. They enjoyed playing basketball.”

1976-77 Oyster River senior captains Jody Mooradian and Laurie Herbst admiring the championship plaque with coach Cathy Coakley.

Jody Mooradian, player, Oyster River, 1977 Class A girls champs – Mooradian had this memory from game day in 1977, which she recounted in 2019 to Seacoastonline after coach Cathy Coakley’s death: On the day of the state championship game, the bus was 30 minutes late. Coakley, always cool and calm, handled it perfectly. “Instead of getting nervous, she said, ‘OK, everybody let’s start dressing now in the bus.’ We all started putting on our shorts and our sneakers, then when we got off the bus we were ready to go.” Mooradian added, “Some people, even in college, when things start happening, coaches will let the situation take over. I just remember that — ‘just start getting dressed.’ That’s a thing that kind of sticks with you. How do you react? She was very professional. She made it happen. That helped us win, that little adventure.” Indeed, the Bobcats beat perennial power Alton, the two-time defending champs, in the final, 49-46, at Saint Anselm’s College for the school’s first girls’ hoop title. It snapped the Apaches’ 64-game winning streak to cap a perfect 20-0 season for Oyster River.

Mike Whaley, fan, 1976 Class L boys championship game – One of Whaley’s favorite championship memories (when he was a high school teen growing up in the Durham area) took place in the waning seconds of the 1976 Class L final, played at UNH between Trinity and Portsmouth. With the score tied at 58-all and time running out, a Portsmouth player called a timeout the Clippers didn’t have. A technical foul resulted. “Back then, the technical was a one-shot award,” recalled Whaley, not the two shots it is today. “With only a second or two remaining,Trinity sent gritty guard Dan Duval to the line at the end of Lundholm Gymnasium where the crowd enters. Above the basket was an open area where, at the time, fans were allowed to gather to watch the game. Since it was a technical foul shot,  Duval was all by himself at the foul line. As he prepared to take the shot, a small group of hecklers taunted him from above. It didn’t bother Duval, who calmly drilled the shot for the championship win.” That allowed Trinity, coached by Don Beleski, to defend its title, while, for Portsmouth, it was one of four painful Class L championship losses over a six-year span under legendary coach Dan Parr – the state’s winningest coach with 704 coaching victories.

Marge Fisk, coach, Dover, 1977 Class AA girls champs – Fisk guided the Green Wave during the infancy of NHIAA girls basketball from 1970 to 1982. The 1977 championship was unexpected as the previous year’s team, laden with seniors, went undefeated, but was upset in the quarterfinals. However, the ‘77 Dover girls, led by gritty guard Patty Foster, plus the addition of talented sophomores Karen Vitko and Lynne Richard Chavez, went undefeated to win the program’s first title over Manchester Central. “That was one of the finest groups I ever coached,” said Fisk in 2021. “They were just a family. There were a lot of superstars, but we always played as a team, and it made a big difference.” There was no big celebration after the championship win.  On the bus ride back, the players did ask coach Fisk if they could do “something wild.” Mary Brady Legere said the coach let the girls get out of the bus at the Lee Traffic Circle to do a Chinese fire drill around the bus and then get back in. 

Paul Boulay, player, Somersworth, 1984 Class I boys champs – It was the third quarter of the 1984 final at UNH and Somersworth trailed Pembroke by 10 points (45-45) with under two minutes to play. The Hilltoppers were 20-0 and playing in their third straight final, having lost the previous two. “They’re shooting a free throw and I’m lined up looking into the stands trying not to start crying,” said Boulay, who recalls he and teammate, Kyle Hodsdon, talked about winning the championship as pre-teens back in the day at a family Christmas party. “I went coast to coast for an old-school three and then assisted on a layup to end the third quarter (to cut the lead to 45-40). We outscored them 15-6 in the fourth to win 55-51. Up 53-51 with five seconds left, I got fouled and went to the line for a 1-and-1 (before the 3-point shot). I remember hitting the first one (to make it a two-possession game) and erupting with a jumping fist pump and a quick run in front of our fans. Don’t remember thinking about doing it, but the release of emotions and relief was just overwhelming because I’m not sure what I’d have done if we’d lost three straight.”

Tim Mucher, Farmington • 1984 Class M State Champions

Mike Lee, coach, Farmington, Class M boys champs (1984, 1988) – Lee, who coached the Tigers, from 1977 to 1998, recalls at the end of the 1984 championship game, a 76-54 win over Conant, being approached by a furious Peter Cofran, the tournament administrator. Cofran was yelling at Lee, “Get him down!” Lee had no idea what Cofran was referring to, until he saw Farmington guard Tim Mucher standing atop one of the rims. “I don’t know how he got up there,” said Lee, although he had his suspicions. “I’m sure it was something he had seen on television.” Not long after, Lee recalls going to the NHIAA offices in Concord and seeing a picture of Mucher on the rim. He laughs. “That resonates now.” He also recalls in the final 90 seconds of  the 1988 championship game, a 78-70 win over Mascoma, seeing a nickel, heads up, in front of the Farmington bench. As he bent down to pick it up, a voice yelled, “Don’t pick it up. It’s been there the whole game.” That voice belonged to Tony Carone, a member of the ‘84 championship team. Lee left the nickel there because, you know, a heads-up nickel signifies good luck – and it did that day for the Tigers.

Nute Rams • 1990 Class S State Champions

David Burrows, player, Nute, 1990 Class S boys champs – Burrows led the Rams to their last hoop title in 1990, scoring a tournament record 149 points in four games (still the most in the state regardless of division or gender). Nute beat Wilton-Lyndeborough in the final, 56-45, behind 34 points from Burrows. He had this recollection: “Something that stands out in my memory was after our championship game (in 1990). The team bus and several spectator buses were parked at the exit outside the locker rooms at Plymouth State College.  I think the entire community of Milton was waiting for us to come out to celebrate. What I saw next was hair tingling. Wilton’s team came out of that exit and our fans gave Wilton a standing ovation. I was very proud to be part of a community that shows that level of respect and sportsmanship.  Something you rarely see these days.”

Kelly Hall Barsky, center, is now the interim athletic director at UC Santa Barbara where she is a former basketball coach. In 1992-93 she helped lead Coe-Brown to an undefeated season and the Class M girls hoop championship. [Courtesy photo]

Kelly Hall Barsky, player, Coe-Brown, 1993 Class M girls champs – The Bears capped a perfect season with a 54-52 win over Franklin in the final to win the school’s first girls’ basketball championship. Barsky, now the interim athletic director at UC Santa Barbara, fondly remembers the championship and the celebration afterwards. “We rode back in the bus,” she said. “As we pulled into Epsom (Traffic) Circle and then all the way to Northwood, there were families that came out of their houses, along the route, and turned their lights on. We had a fire truck that led the bus. They came out and waved and we were waving and cheering.” It culminated with the team going back to the Coe-Brown gym where the Bears practiced every day. “Families and community members showed up,” said Barsky, who played for her dad, Tom Hall. “It brings me to tears now because it was just a moment of unity.”

 

The 1992-93 Stratford Lions went 21-0 to win the Class S state boys hoop championship, beating Orford in the final, 40-39. [Courtesy photo]

Eric Hurlbert, player, Stratford, 1993 Class S boys champs – Hurlbert was a junior on that undefeated team and one of three players – seniors Troy Burns and Josh Stone were the other two – to break 1,000 points that season (two did it in the same game). The Lions beat Orford for the title, 40-39, scoring the winning basket at the buzzer on a Billy Burns feed to his brother Troy. It was Stratford’s first championship since 1942. The school closed in 2012.

Keith Friel, player, Oyster River, 1995 Class I boys champs – It was a special moment for Friel when the Bobcats won the first of back-to-back Class I titles in the mid 1990s – a 55-52 win over Lebanon. “Our first championship, winning it at Lundholm (Gymnasium) with that core of kids we grew up playing together from (grades) 3, 4, 5, all the way up,” Friel said. “That was special. Hugging my brother (Greg). It was a culmination of all those hours of camp, all those hours in the gym growing up in Lundholm (where the Friel boys dad was the UNH men’s coach from 1969 to 1989). It was kind of surreal. I have all those memories of seeing (my dad) coaching there. When he ran out on the floor and hugged me, it was really special.”

Dave Smith coached Coe-Brown Northwood Academy to the 1997 Class M boys basketball championship. He is pictured here in 2021 being honored for his 600th coaching win. [Courtesy photo]

Dave Smith, coach, Coe-Brown, 1997 Class M boys champs – The dean of active N.H. coaches, Smith has coached basketball in the state for 55 years (45 in high school). The beginning of his one championship win in ‘97 still resonates. “We started out 6-0 – behind,” recalls Smith. “I was very close to (calling) a timeout. They had the ball. I was saying, ‘Oh crap, this isn’t a good way to start.’ We were pressing at Plymouth State. … Dakota Smith was playing up front on the press and he came all the way back on the rotation, which was a good rotation. He made a steal. We went down and scored. From then on it was back and forth. That kind of set the tone for us defensively. We had a great defensive game.” Coe-Brown won the championship, 57-43.

Dave Nichols, coach, Oyster River, 2003 Class I girls champs – This is one of Nichols’ favorite stories about the 2003 champs. He coached the Bobcats to four titles, and was the first in N.H. to coach both a boys and a girls team to a championship (OR boys in 1988, and three girls teams – 2003, 2006, 2009). “After our first game I commented that it was clear that this team was going to be very good and that all could see that they loved playing together,” Nichols recalled. “I told them that they would have 25 opportunities to do that, 18 regular-season games, three in the holiday tournament (Manchester, playing three Class L schools) and then four in the Class I tournament if we could get all the way to the finals; 25 games, maybe. Then I said, ‘one down’ and they shouted ‘24 to go.’ That countdown continued after every game. That was quite prophetic, too, and later people asked if I had been brazen enough to tell the team that we could go 25-0. No, the 25 games were how many they ‘could’ play, not a challenge to win them all. But we did.”

Dan O’Rourke, coach, Hanover, 2005 Class I girls champs – O’Rourke, the Marauders’ coach since 2001, recalls a key moment early on in the 2005 Class I championship against Oyster River, coached by Dave Nichols. Hanover had three girls with fevers and Oyster River got out to an eight-point lead. Hanover had a player named Emily Huff, who O’Rourke described as a terrier. She was on the bench going, ‘Let me in. Let me in.’ O’Rourke said let’s see what happens, knowing that when he put her in she would get after it. “Finally the game was starting to get away,” he said. “We put her in. Within a 3- or 4-minute span she completely changed the complexion of the game. Came in. Stole the ball two or three times. Hit a shot, and suddenly it was back to a tie game.” Hanover went on to win, 49-38, to defend their 2004 title. The Marauders have won five titles under O’Rourke.

Stephanie Larpenter, player, Sunapee, 2006 sand 2007 Class S girls champs – “One memory that stands out from our championships from 2006 to 2007 is that in the championship game in 2006 there was four minutes left in the game and I tore my ACL,” said Larpenter, who is now Sunapee’s coach. “Fast forward to 2007 after surgery and physical therapy for eight months. We beat Groveton, and just the feeling of accomplishment personally and with the team coming back from a major injury like that is something I’ll never forget. The satisfaction of all the hard work paid off. I think that is one core memory that really stands out to me.”

John Mulvey, player, Portsmouth, 2009 Class I boys champs – “I grew up playing basketball with the same group that won the 2009 championship,” wrote Mulvey who played for his dad, Jim Mulvey and is now the Clipper coach. “Growing up, we would play all day every day. Playing high school basketball with this same group was a dream. We had a lot of success, but going into our senior year we were missing something. That was a state championship. Late in the game, we got two full-court layups from long passes after Pelham scored. After those layups, we realized the game was out of reach and we were going to win the championship. I will never forget the feeling and moment of jumping around with my best friends celebrating a state championship.” Final score: Portsmouth 61, Pelham 48. On a personal note, Mulvey scored a game-high 26 points and buried five 3-pointers, a tournament record he still shares with two other players. The game, however, did not start well for the lefty sharpshooter. He missed his first seven shots. “The first couple almost broke the backboard,” he said in 2020. “I had to settle down.” Which he obviously did.

Aliza Simpson McKenna, player, Londonderry, 2014 Division I girls champs – “We had one loss on the season to Bedford and we were squaring up again for the state title. This was legendary Coach John Fagula’s last high school game after an incredible career and we were hoping to send him off as a champion. I’ll never forget, we were down by two and we probably had 10 seconds left to play. Bedford was a powerhouse and had great defenders. The time was running down and Brittany Roche was left wide open in the corner. A pass came flying at her from a baseline drive and without any fear she threw up a 3-pointer. Nothing but net. We had clinched the title, 57-56, ended Bedford’s undefeated season and allowed John Fagula to sail off into the sunset as a champion.”

Rick Forge, coach, Gilford, 2016 Division III girls champs – “The perfect season,” said Forge, who also coached Gilford to the 2009 title and Somersworth to a crown in 1986 in Class I. “Back then Lakes Region basketball fostered some great rivalries amongst the area’s seven Division 3 schools.  It was only fitting that Gilford and Laconia would be the two teams left standing for the finals. The schools, separated by a couple of miles – or a few long 3-pointers – would be meeting for the fourth time that season (holiday tournament included).  Each previous matchup was an instant classic, including a triple OT game that is still talked about. The community atmosphere in the local coffee shops and businesses was electric.  On championship Saturday it was a full SNHU gym of red and blue and the fans, well let’s just  say they were into it.The actual game was wire to wire filled with huge moments: long 3s from Brooke Beaudet, a clutch Maddie Harris steal in the final minute, Cassidy Bartlett assisting on a Jordan Dean game-winning backdoor cut, and Stevie Orton’s game-sealing free throws in the final seconds. When the final horn sounded we had managed to squeeze out a (42-38) win and complete the undefeated journey. It was a perfect ending to a perfect season for a perfect group of young ladies.”  

Cassidy Bartlett, player, Gilford, 2016 Division III girls champs – “I can still feel the overwhelming sense of emotion that came with the final buzzer,” said via email.  “Years of memories, practice, competition and passion culminating into a picture-perfect ending. There is nothing like celebrating a championship.  It’s not just for the team or Gilford High School – it’s for an entire community.  It hangs as a banner; a piece of history that serves as a symbol of legacy for those who come next.  At the core of our accomplishment was the culture of the team.  We grew up learning the game together, and we inspired each other to be the best versions of ourselves.  Most importantly, we were devoted to the same mission: ‘Take care of the little things and the big thing will take care of itself.’’’

Trevor Howard, player/coach, Littleton, Class M/Division IV boys champs 1990, 2016, 2020 – Howard is part of a small N.H. fraternity to have played for and coached for a high school state champion. Here are a couple quick thoughts from the current Crusaders’ coach: “The last four boys’ state championships 1971, 1990, 2016, 2020 were all undefeated. Littleton hasn’t won a state championship in 50 years with a loss on their record. So I guess it’s either undefeated or nothing.  I’ve been lucky and blessed to be involved in nine state championship games, one as a player, one as an assistant coach, and seven as a head coach.” A huge moment for Howard was Ethan Ellingwood’s game-winning shot with 10 seconds to play in the 2016 championship game against Portsmouth Christian that broke a 36-all tie and won it for the Crusaders. “Best memory and biggest shot in LHS basketball history,” said Howard, who captured his first title as a coach.

Jay Darrah, coach, Pittsfield, 2018 Division IV boys champs – Two indelible memories for coach Darrah as Pittsfield won its first hoop state title, beating Newmarket, 43-40. The first: “As a coach, having some of the members of the 1981 and 1990 (runner-up) teams handing over their runner-up medals post game and thanking us for finishing the job that they wanted so badly. Thanking us for bringing a state championship to Pittsfield for the first time.” Secondly: “As a father who had the pleasure of coaching my son and his closest friends through this memorable season, I will never forget the post-game medal ceremony. Placing medals around the boys’ necks in front of our community will be one of my favorite moments.  The 2018 season was my 17th season coaching the Panthers.  We had a handful of semifinal appearances, but never managed to make it to the finals.  But that didn’t stop my son Cam and I from attending every championship game as he grew older.  He always promised me that someday he would get me that championship medal. Well the last player to be presented a medal that day was my son Cameron.  After I placed the medal around his neck, Cam immediately took the medal from his neck and placed it around mine and gave me a hug and said, ‘Here is the medal I have been promising you.’”

Jeff Holmes, coach, Exeter, 2019 D-I boys champs – A few things jump out for Holmes who won his first coaching championship with a 53-30 win over Salem, completing an undefeated season. “We jumped out 7-0, hitting our first three shots,” he said. “That was huge.” To begin the fourth quarter, Salem got a technical with the game still close in the 7-8-9 range. That started a run to allow the Blue Hawks to pull away. As Exeter pulled away, Holmes got to soak in the championship moment in the final minutes. “It was going our way, so I’ve got to take it in, winning the title, which was pretty cool,” he said.

Epping • 2019 Division IV State Champions

Nick Fiset, coach, Epping, 2019 D-IV boys champs – “I remember thinking all week during practice the championship game would fly by, but (remember) during the game feeling like the clock never moved and it was taking forever,” Fiset recalled. “ I called a timeout after Hunter Bullock scored an incredible basket and said to him while he was walking over ‘Keep it going, only a little bit left.’  He replied like he always did, ‘Coach, I can do this all night.’  All I could think to myself was, ‘He sure can.’”

John Fisher, coach, Bishop Guertin, 2021 Division I boys champs – “While I have many fond memories of our championship game – 42-35 win over Winnacunnet – one that stands out was the elation on the faces of the senior players on that team after the final buzzer when they ran onto the floor,” Fisher wrote via email. “A close second was listening to the speeches each senior player gave at the basketball banquet that occurred the next week. Each player’s speech was filled with fond memories of times spent with members of the team. It was an inspiring moment and reminded everyone in the room that having fun with your friends is ultimately what the game is about.”

Rick Acquilano, coach, Gilford, 2021 Division III boys champs – Gilford trailed in the final by as many as 13 points in the second half, but rallied to tie it at 39-all with 22 seconds to play. Hopkinton had the ball. “We needed a defensive stop,” the coach recalled. Gilford’s Riley Marsh stole the ball at mid-court and took it in for a layup to take the lead.  “The game ended with Jalen Reese blocking a shot attempt under the basket as time expired to hold on for a 41-40 victory,” Acquilano said. “Two great defensive plays to preserve the victory.”

Dave Nichols, now an assistant with the Hanover girls, has been coaching since the early 1970s when he was a volunteer assistant at his alma mater of Milford HS. He weaves a good story, and it is this one that we will leave you with, about Oyster River’s 1988 boys’ hoop championship, complete with a superb background story.

During the summer of 1987 he  coached an AAU team along with the late Jack Ford of Winnacunnet and Mike Lee of Farmington. “We had two of my Oyster River players on the team, John Freiermuth and Pat Casey,” Nichols recalled. “Mike Joslin of Lebanon was also on the team. Those three kids, the only ones from Class I, along with Mike Mucher of Farmington, who was the only Class M player, would hang out together a lot. AAU was different back then and we were allowed to pick kind of an all-star team from N.H. so the rest of the team was Class L kids. On one trip I had those four kids in the car with me and the subject of the coming high school season came up. Mike Joslin claimed that they, Lebanon, were loaded and going ‘all the way’. Slowly I responded to the delight of the other three in the car.  ‘Actually, this is what’s going to happen, Mike. You guys will have a great season, probably go undefeated because you have an easy schedule. The three other top teams will be Goffstown, Merrimack Valley (Scott Drapeau was an incredible freshman) and Oyster River. Those three teams will play each other twice and will probably split the wins.” The other three players were now chiming in and giving Joslin, who we all liked a lot, a hard time about their ‘soft’ schedule. I went on. ‘The four of us will get to the semifinals and you’ll have to beat two of us to win it all. That won’t happen. You might beat one of us in the semis but whoever is left will shock you in the finals because you will have faced zone teams all year and you’re not quick enough to play man against any of us. Hopefully it will be us in the finals, right guys?” nodding to Pat and John. “And if it is, you won’t be able to bring the ball up alone against our man press all night.

If it’s us, playing on our ‘second home court’ where we practice all the time (admittedly a huge exaggeration) you’ll have had your third long drive down in a week while we have a five-minute bus ride, we’ll wear down your tired butts and send you back for a long, lonely ride home.’ The other three all joined in with a chorus of agreement while I smiled.

Pretty much the best prediction I have ever made. It was a long hard season for us but somehow we were ranked No. 2 with MV third and Goffstown fourth. Lebanon did get by Goffstown while we pulled out a close, hard-fought win over Merrimack Valley. 

In the locker room at UNH someone came by to wish us luck and said there were a bunch of limousines in front of UNH to drive the players and coaches back to Lebanon. We never knew if that was true or not, but certainly used it as motivation. Lang Metcalf was a great coach and a lot of insiders thought this was going to be his crowning achievement to a storied career. Lang admitted to me later that he knew they were in for a battle. Joslin played well, but we did wear him down and Freiermuth was deservedly the player of the year. We led the whole way and the game was not really as close as expected, 65-51. Oyster River’s first-ever Class I championship.

If you have championship memories of your own that you’d like to share, please email those to kj@ball603.com by March 15 and we’ll post those as well.

Amid shortage, women coaches thrive in Division IV

By Mike Whaley

Wednesday was a big evening for high school girls’ basketball coaches in New Hampshire. Three of the four coaches in the NHIAA Division IV semifinals were women, which is something to celebrate in a state where women are vastly under-represented in that profession.

No. 3 Derryfield held off No. 2 Pittsburg-Canaan in overtime in the first semifinal at Newfound High School, 47-40, while unbeaten No. 1 seed Concord Christian dispatched No. 4 Woodsville, 64-44, in the second game.

Concord Christian Head Coach Rebecca Carlile.

Rebecca Carlile’s CCA squad will meet Courtney Cheetham’s Derryfield five in the championship Sunday at Keene State College at 1 p.m. – a rarity in N.H. for two women coaches to face off in a basketball championship game.

The third female coach in Wednesday’s mix was Woodsville’s Tori Clough, who, at 24, is one of the youngest coaches in the state.

Farmington coach Dawn Weeks was excited about the semis with three women patrolling the sidelines. “Being one of few, it drives us to work that much harder,” she said.

Of New Hampshire’s 85 varsity high school girls’ basketball head coaching positions, only 17 – or 20 percent – are held by women. In Maine, the percentage is 28.

Newmarket Head Coach Meghan Averill.

Cheetham was ecstatic about the opportunity to coach against other women, especially in the tournament. “I just coached against (Newmarket’s) Meghan Averill,” she said of her team’s quarterfinal win over the Mules. “She’s my coach of the year in Division IV. She’s another female who is right there. She’s great.”

She added,” I think it’s really good for girls’ sports. … It’s good to see a decent amount of female coaches in the south.” Of the 17 women’s varsity hoop coaches in the state, seven are in D-IV, five in D-III, three in D-II and two in D-I.

“I think it’s good for kids to see some role-modeling,” Cheetham said. 

Woodsville Head Coach Tori Clough.

Clough, in her first year as a head coach, knew it would be a challenge against Concord Christian. “Rebecca Carlile has done such a great job with her team,” she said. “If we can just hang with them, that would be a successful first year in my book.

“Rebecca, Courtney, Meghan Averill from Newmarket, I look up to all of them,” said Clough, a 2016 Woodsville grad. “They have such great teams and they do such a nice job with them.”

“I think it’s amazing,” Carlile said. “I think it’s great. Anytime you see women being empowered to use their gifts and talents, what she’s passionate about. … I love to see women doing what they’re doing and not feeling like they can’t do it because it’s a men’s job.

“I also think it’s a great opportunity for the girls to see women doing something that they are passionate about, that they’re knowledgeable about, and they’re willing to instill what they know on a younger generation.”

SMALL FRATERNITY, BIG CHALLENGES

But the fact remains that women make up a small part of New Hampshire’s basketball coaching landscape.

Why is that? Are women not applying? Are they not being considered or even encouraged? Does the climate turn them off? Is it more difficult for women to coach in an environment stocked with so many men? There is a lot of speculation. 

Although armed with no specific answers, Dover High School Athletic Director Peter Wotton did note that the New Hampshire Athletic Directors Association (NHADA) will be dealing with similar subjects at its spring conference in May. “We’ll be looking at gender equity, Title IX and how to increase participation in females in sports,” he said. “We didn’t specifically mention basketball, but it is something we are going to be talking about as a group at our conference. It is something we do recognize in general.”

That being said, the position of athletic director in the state is another that is held mostly by men. Of the 88 high schools in the state, 12 have women ADs.

Speaking for Dover, Wotton said a woman has not been a head hoop coach at the school since he’s been there, which dates back to the mid 1990s. “I’m trying to think back,” he said. “We’ve had maybe a couple applicants. But only one good one, one that was close (to getting hired).”

Wotton said there is a common misconception from the general public that schools are receiving dozens of applicants for coaching positions. “If we get five, six, seven, eight, it’s oh my god, I can’t believe we have this many,” he said. “This is great.”

The opposite, however, is usually the case. “We’ve had head positions of significant sports that we got one or two,” Wotton said. “We’ve had one before.”

Dover is currently advertising for a new head girls’ basketball coach. 

New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization President Dave Chase agreed with that assessment. “The first thing I would say: it’s hard to get male coaches,” he said. “Times have changed. It’s a bigger commitment. I don’t think anyone is saying they don’t want to hire a female to coach basketball. There are so few women that are getting into it. I really don’t know why.”

It is a topic, however, that Chase intends to put on the agenda for the next NHBCO meeting on March 12.

He also pointed out that the NHBCO right now just has Averill (treasurer) as one of its four officers. The organization is currently looking for a vice president and secretary. “We’re begging,” he said. “It’s tough to get women to do it if there’s not a lot of women coaching.”

Derryfield Head Coach Courtney Cheetham (center).

Cheetham did note that before Derryfield, where she is in her second year as the head coach, she was the head coach at D-I Merrimack for six years. She had some pretty good success there, and was named coach of the year in her final season (2017-18).

She took a year off from coaching, but then put her name back out there in 2019. “I applied for other jobs the next year and I didn’t get them, which is funny to me,” she said.

Now she’s happy she didn’t get any of those jobs because she enjoys coaching at Derryfield so much, where she is also the Director of Wellness.

Certainly another reason that is universal is that some women want to have families. Carlile falls under that category. A 1994 graduate of Alvirne High School, she played basketball at Southern Nazarene University in the mid to late 1990s (two-time NAIA national champs). Coaching basketball wasn’t even on her radar until she was approaching 40.

Even then it came more out of necessity than anything else.

She was watching her son and then daughter play youth basketball, and not enjoying the experience. She finally decided she could bring more to the table with her past expertise to help out the well-meaning, but less knowledgeable volunteer coaches when her daughter was in third grade.  “It got to the point where I’ve just got to help here,” Carlile said.

Eventually that evolved into coaching CCA’s middle school team for two years, and then she was approached to coach the high school team three years ago. “It’s not like people are banging down doors to get coaching positions,” she said.

That coincided with a rejuvenation of sports at CCA. The school had built a new athletic facility. “There was extra energy,” she said. “There was some extra effort focused on winning, honestly. We can win and be Christian. We can be loving and kind and still win. That’s been fun to watch the last couple of years.”

As much as her first year as a head coach has been a great experience for Clough, it does provide insight into some of the challenges a young female coach faces.

“It was a lot,” said Clough, who played for and worked under male coaches at Woodsville. “I won’t lie. I’m coaching against the coaches I played against six, seven years ago.” 

She was able to use some of those coaches as resources like Littleton’s Dale Prior and Groveton’s Tim Haskins. “It was fun to have them as mentors this year,” Clough said. “They’ve kind of helped me along; given me some tips. It’s nice when you can look up to those coaches.”

Clough felt it was a good change for Woodsville having a young woman coach. “I know the kids appreciate having a female role model now,” she said. “It feels different as a young female coach. You look around and it’s all the typical middle-aged males.”

Clough is a patched basketball official in Vermont, and there are very few women officials in that state. The case is the same in N.H.

“It’s daunting to be a young female trying to do anything right now,” she said. “It’s nice to have the men to support me and it’s nice that they do. But I wish that I would see more females.”

Clough recalls it was a battle when she first started as the head coach. “I don’t think people trust you as much as they would a middle-aged male,” she said. “We definitely have to earn people’s respect much more than a middle-aged male would. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true.

“I see that in officiating and I see it in coaching, too,” Clough said. “I step onto the floor to officiate and (she gets the look) – ‘it seems like she looks really young.’ I do just as good a job as a 50-year-old man.”

Along the same lines, Cheetham found it funny when she began coaching at the Division IV level. She was learning who some of the referees were. “Ninety-five percent of the time everybody would walk over to my assistant (a man) and introduce themselves,” she said. “They thought he was the head coach. And every time he’d point to me – ‘She’s the coach.’ There’s this assumption that he was the coach. Why him?”

She added, “This is no knock on referees because I’m a patched referee myself,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for referees.”

“It’s tough that we have to earn that respect, to earn people’s trust to have faith in us, when we do just as good a job,” Clough said. “I think that keeps a lot of females from hanging around. We have to work extra hard for something that a man doesn’t have to” because of who they are.”

Even now, Clough isn’t sure what future coaching path she will take. She’s also involved with high school soccer, and feels she could pursue that with or instead of basketball.

Farmington Head Coach Dawn Weeks.

Weeks sees challenges in regards to a few of the male coaches she deals with, although most of her relationships are very good. However, there are a few men who won’t shake her hand or share scouting information. She recalls, as well, trying fervently to get a timeout in a game and could not get a male official’s attention. She was only awarded the timeout when her male counterpart finally was able to catch the official’s eye.

Another important advantage for Clough is her flexibility as a teacher. She teaches third grade at nearby Monroe Consolidated School. That allows her to get to practice and games without impacting her job, something that cannot be said for those who do not work in education.

Ditto for Cheetham and Pinkerton Academy’s Lani Buskey, who work in the school systems where they coach. Carlile has maintained her coaching flexibility working part-time for her family’s business.

“My players have more of a comfortable friendship personally with me,” Clough said. “They’ll share things with me that I say ‘Would you have shared that with a male coach?’ They tell stories. They’re so comfortable and relaxed. I haven’t seen that in the past when there was a male coach. They take advice from me, whether it’s coaching or life advice. It’s kind of nice to think I could be a role model for them.”

WOMEN COACHES EMPOWERING GIRLS

Buskey is one of two D-I coaches, recently leading her team to the D-I semifinals. She was named D-I Coach of the year for the third time.

A 1998 graduate of Pinkerton, Buskey played basketball for the Astros. She has taught English and coached basketball at the Derry school for the past 19 years. This was her ninth season as the varsity coach.

She has no answers as to why there are so few women’s hoop coaches in the state. “Knowing that there are not a lot of us, I take the role very seriously because I know I’m one of few,” Buskey said. “For me, understanding that representation matters in all forms, I really try to be the kind of leader that girls can look at and see themselves doing that. They can see a strong female in a leadership role doing it correctly, holding the whole program accountable and being successful at it. I think that’s important for girls.”

It’s an important point that the other coaches agree with.

“My theme in life, whether coaching or not, is to help people get to their potential or help them maximize their potential,” Cheetham said. “That’s my life coaching mentality. I always like to find that everybody is awesome.”

While Cheetham feels it’s important to expose kids to different voices whether they’re male or female, she is convinced that having strong, passionate female coaches are necessary role models to help impact the future of young women. “I do believe there is a role-modeling component,” she said. “And me being a female I might have the opportunity to do what someone who is male couldn’t.”

Weeks expanded on her take on accountability. A 1991 graduate of Farmington High School, where she was a player, she has been a girls’ head hoop for 10 years, the last nine at Farmington. “We have these ‘Come-to-Jesus’ moments when we sit at center court if I’m aggravated about something,” she said. “I don’t sugar coat anything. That’s not real life. Is it the teacher’s fault that you failed the exam? That’s not the teacher’s fault. It’s about accountability and ownership. It’s about realizing in real life that you’re going to have to work harder than everybody else. You can’t make excuses. And start now. Put on your big girl pants and own it.”

Weeks goes on to say, “I do want to be a good role model. I kind of lead by example and send the right message empowering them: don’t set limits on yourself. You can do anything you want to do.”

Shared experience is at the top of the list. As ex-players and as women, some women coaches feel they can offer insight because they went through some of the same stuff.

“I can say, ‘I’ve been here and here is how I handled it,’” Buskey said. “‘This is how you could approach it if you wanted to.’ I do think that’s the advantage of a female coaching another female. It makes communication or our delivery of things a small advantage over our male counterparts because I’ve been there before. I’ve walked in their shoes.”

“So much about teaching and coaching is about your own personal experience,” said Cheetham, 37, who played at Trinity High School. “Good or bad, I can relate to what it’s like to be a female athlete more than a man can. … I know what it’s like to be in their shoes. That’s a valuable perspective to have people who have similar experiences they can share.”

Carlile has a different take on a similar theme. “For me, I didn’t handle them well,” she said of some of her decisions made when she was younger. “I was facing it and here’s how I wished I handled it. Kids are kids. They don’t know. You do the best to help them and work them through the issues. I’m sure that perspective definitely affects my coaching.”

As for being a good coach for female athletes, Cheetham feels it is key to “understand how each of them ticks as individuals. It’s very different from coaching male athletes. Coaching female athletes you have to really understand each kid as an individual and how they want to be coached and how you can get the most out of them. I think that’s where I would have the slightest advantage as a female just trying to understand that.”

Carlile says that “Psychology 101” is her biggest coaching asset. “Getting kids to work hard for you and want to work for a common goal is as valuable as knowing Xs and Os on the basketball court,” she said. 

Carlile feels that coaches who focus on Xs and Os and drill their kids to improve their skill and win games ultimately get unhappy kids who don’t want to play for them. “That’s an aspect of coaching that I love,” she said. “Trying to figure out how to get these kids to want to work together and want to work hard for you. I don’t know that every coach is even aware that’s a big aspect of the game. I think it is.”

 Part of the job can also be forging a path for the next generation of women coaches.

One of Cheetham’s former players at Merrimack, Abby Yuan, fits in that category. A solid player and good leader in high school, she has a scholarship at St. John’s University as a basketball manager. Yuan is graduating this spring and plans to pursue a career in coaching. Cheetham said Yuan will apply for different graduate assistant jobs at the Division I college level.

“She’s a great example of a kid who came up, wasn’t the best player, but was able to understand the value of female leadership and empowerment seen around her and then take it in,” Cheetham said.

Buskey talks about a former player, Ashley Hugh, who is one of her assistants. “She’s a sponge,” the coach said. “She’s constantly trying to take in our culture and how we approach things. I work really hard to build relationships with my girls. She’s also working to find a way to do that.”

Another woman who played at Pinkerton when Buskey was an assistant, Laura Pierce, is now the head women’s coach at Fitchburg State University. “I was around for her,” Buskey said. “She coaches at the college level and she used to work at my camps. She’s a fantastic coach. Coming back to some of those camps along the way helped her hone in on some of the advantages you can have to be a strong female coaching a female program.”

“For me, the mission is let’s play good basketball and let’s make you really great basketball players,” Buskey said. “So let’s make you even stronger, confident women to go out in the world and change it.”

In New Hampshire, the fraternity of women coaching girls’ basketball remains small but, for the most part, committed to their craft and the empowerment of their girls.

For feedback or story ideas, email jamsession@ball603.com.

Woodsville engineering a return to hoop greatness

By Mike Whaley

When Woodsville won the 2021 Division IV high state school boys basketball championship, it removed the proverbial monkey off its back. The Engineers celebrated their first hoop title in 44 years, dating back to the 1970s when legendary coach John Bagonzi prowled the sidelines.

It’s been a long journey back to the top for the little New Hampshire border school. For the uninitiated, the village of Woodsville (1,400 pop.) is located 40 minutes north of Hanover, N.H. It partially sits on the banks of the Connecticut River, the state’s natural border with Vermont, just across the Veterans Memorial Bridge from its neighbors in Wells River, Vt.

Legendary Woodsville coach John Bagonzi, right, is pictured here in the early 1970s conferring with his team during a tournament game in Durham. Bagonzi, who died in 2014, guided Woodsville basketball teams to five Class M state titles from 1969 to 1977. [Courtesy photo]

With four returning starters, Woodsville is looking to defend that title this winter. The top-seeded Engineers carry a perfect 18-0 record into the D-IV state tournament as the lone unbeaten boys’ team in the state. They will host No. 16 Hinsdale Monday night in the first round of the tournament, which culminates March 11 with the championship game at Keene State College.

With the exception of wins over their Vermont neighbor at Blue Mountain Union by 8 and 19 points, the Engineers have beaten every single one of their N.H. opponents by at least 21 points. They have outscored the opposition by an average of 69 to 33 in 18 games. Only twice in those 18 games has an opponent managed to score more than 50 points, and only seven times 40 or more.

Under Woodsville alum Jamie Walker’s guidance, the Engineers have been a consistent playoff participant in D-IV since the early part of the century. However, until last winter, Woodsville had been unable to collect the big prize, taking a backseat behind other North Country programs like Colebrook, Groveton, Lisbon and Littleton.

ENGINEERS FINALLY BREAK THROUGH

Woodsville coach Jamie Walker cradles some of the spoils of the Engineers’ historic 2021 state championship win. [Arinn Roy photo]

Walker knew he had something coming into last season, but not necessarily a championship caliber squad. “I thought we would be competitive,” Walker said. “We had done all right the previous year. By no means did I think we’d win it all. But I thought we had a chance to be really good.”

With a team made up of freshmen, sophomores and juniors, the Engineers did just fine in 2020. But things ended badly in the quarterfinals at Newmarket, a 63-26 pasting.

That loss left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Woodsville’s Cam Tenney-Burt drives to the basket during the 2021 D-IV semifinals against Groveton. [Arinn Roy photo]

“I was really frustrated after my sophomore year,” said senior forward Elijah Flocke. “I felt like we had a good team with Cam Tenney-Burt coming in (a transfer from Lisbon). I felt like we could have gone further. Newmarket was a really good team. It was a wakeup call that there were bigger fish in the water. Coming into my junior year, I wanted to be that big fish.”

“We were unhappy with the year before, so we just wanted to come out and prove a point that we were one of the better teams,” said junior forward Cam Davidson.

Walker shakes his head about the Newmarket game. “I never told the kids this, but it was just men playing against boys,” he said. “We were sophomores and juniors playing against really rugged juniors and seniors. We couldn’t get a rebound, and they couldn’t shove us out of the way fast enough to grab another one.”

Although Walker’s son Brendan transferred to Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, N.H, to focus on baseball (he’s been recruited as a pitcher by NCAA Division I Stetson University in Deland, Florida), Woodsville returned most of its lineup intact.

Four of the primary players were talented underclassmen (three juniors and a sophomore). The one senior was indispensable point guard Corey Bemis. “At the end of games he was the one we put the ball in his hands,” Walker said. “He was the one getting us to that set or situation that the basket was made. He was the kind of kid every championship team needs. He does all the stuff that’s not noticed or isn’t in the scorebook. You know, without him on the floor, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

Woodsville forward Elijah Flocke, right, is pictured earlier this season during a game against Profile. [Arinn Roy photo]

The Engineers opened with an 84-48 win over Colebrook, the first of three straight wins, before they hit a road bump. They lost three of their next four, but two were against bigger schools (D-III White Mountains and D-II Kennett). There was a feeling that even though they lost to Kennett by six on Feb. 10, 2021, that was a turning point.

“After we played Kennett, I felt like we could contend with anybody in Division IV,” Flocke said.

Woodsville has not lost a game since. They won their final four of the regular season, collected five wins in the tournament and 18 this year to run their current streak to 27 – and counting. It’s the longest active boys’ streak in the state.

Woodsville guard Mike Maccini, right, twists to the basket during the 2021 D-IV quarterfinals at Concord Christian Academy. [Arinn Roy photo]

In the 2021 tournament, Woodsville (13-3) rolled through the first two rounds over Lin-Wood, 54-34, and Lisbon, 49-18. Flocke’s 22 points paced the Lin-Wood victory, while Mike Maccini and Tenney-Burt split 24 points vs. Lisbon.

Walker points to the 48-42 quarterfinal win at Concord Christian Academy as a critical moment in that run. “When you win a championship there’s one game that could have gone the other way,” Walker said. “That was definitely the game.”

Woodsville played nervously at the start. “We had never seen Concord Christian,” Walker said. “We knew they were big, but we didn’t know how big. They were 6-6, 6-4, 6-3. They were just big people.”

Indeed, the Engineers found themselves down 22-8 in the first quarter. Davidson was sitting next to Walker in foul trouble, and to make matters worse, Tenney-Burt rolled his ankle and had to leave the game for a short period.

It wasn’t looking good.

“I looked at my assistant,” Walker recalled. “‘I’ve got to put Davidson back in. It doesn’t matter if we sit him until halftime if we’re down 35-10. That’s not really going to help us.’”

Woodsville forward Cam Davidson (34) goes up for two points against Moultonborough earlier this season. [Arinn Roy photo]

The gamble paid off. Davidson sparked a 19-4 run that put Woodsville up 27-26 at the break. They widened the lead to 39-30 after three. In the fourth, CCA cut the lead to four, but Maccini hit a big 3-pointer and drained some clutch free throws to help secure the six-point win. Maccini, Davidson and Tenney-Burt each had 12 points.

Next up in the semis at Plymouth Regional High School was Groveton, the most successful team in the history of Division IV basketball with 10 state titles. Normally, the Engineers would have played Groveton during the regular season, but because of covid, they did not play some of the North Country schools, including the Eagles.

“Groveton and (coach) Mark Collins, nobody likes playing him in a semifinal or championship game,” Walker said. “He usually finds a way to win. It was good to get over that hump. It was good that we hadn’t played them. They didn’t know us.”

Of course, Woodsville had its predictable slow start, as had been the case in the previous three playoff games. They only scored three points to trail 8-3 after eight minutes.

“We didn’t score in the first four or five minutes of the game,” recalled Walker. “Kids were dribbling off their feet. One ball was eight feet over someone else’s head. We were just nervous.”

Walker called timeout, telling the Engineers to relax. “It’s just a basketball game,” he said. “Maybe a little more at stake here. Just settle down.”

Groveton presses all the time, that’s what they do. One thing Walker noticed was that Woodsville was breaking the press, but stopped at halfcourt and let all five of Groveton guys get back on defense, instead of exploiting a 2-on-1 or 3-on-2 advantage.

“In the timeout I said ‘you’re getting by the first four guys,’” said Walker, who played his starting five the whole game without subs. “‘Why are we stopping and letting them get back? Attack the one or two guys that are back’ We started doing that and we started scoring.”

Led by the two Cams (20 points each), they responded in the second quarter with a big surge to go ahead 25-16 at the half, and were able to maintain a cushion the rest of the way en route to a 56-50 victory.

“That game was just a big hump for us,” Davidson said. “So getting over that was a realization factor that we could make some history.”

Standing in the way of that first title since 1977 was Portsmouth Christian Academy, a southern team from the Dover area. PCA had never won a boys basketball championship, so it was chasing some history of its own.

Unlike the previous four playoff games, the Engineers actually started fast, going up 13-6 after the first quarter. But Flocke and Davidson each picked up their second foul and had to sit the entire second quarter.

“I didn’t know how long I was going to sit them,” Walker said. “The score was 19-17 (PCA) at the half. There was no sense of urgency of them pulling away from us to put those guys back in to try and keep it close. I didn’t have to gamble on their third foul being picked up.”

The two were reinserted in the lineup to start the second half. Woodsville immediately went on a run, and their defense locked down PCA. They regained the lead to go ahead 29-21 after three quarters, holding PCA to two points.

That carried over to the fourth quarter where their lead eventually expanded to 25 points before they finished off the 52-30 championship win. Flocke and Tenney-Burt had 15 points each, while Davidson added 14.

Woodsville was in a state of championship euphoria. 

“It was pretty crazy,” said Mike Maccini, a senior point guard. “The bus ride back from Plymouth to Woodsville wasn’t very long, but it’s a long, flat stretch. There were definitely fireworks. There was a pretty long parade. There was a really special feeling back in town.”

Walker laughs as he recalls some of those championship moments. “It’s kind of funny, my first assistant coach before Rob Maccini was Bill Grimes,” he said. “Bill Grimes was a player on the last (championship) team in 1977.”

Grimes coached with Walker through the 2019-20 season, but moved to Florida before last season or he would have been an assistant on the championship team. “He would have been on both ends,” Walker said. “One as a player. One as an assistant coach.”

Grimes followed the Engineers in Fort Myers, Fla. He works at a golf course and actually had the semifinal and championship game streaming on the course’s pub TV. “He coached everybody on that team,” Walker said. “He’s been a part of them as freshmen and sophomores.”

Speaking of connections, the Maccinis are related to the Bagonzis. Rob Maccini is a second cousin of the great coach, while his son, Mike, and nephew, Derek (assistant coach), are third cousins. Rob’s grandfather and coach Bagonzi’s mother were brother and sister. 

“Early this year I was coaching a JV game in Gorham and some old timer came up to me and said, ‘You must be a Bagonzi?’’ wrote Rob Maccini via email. “I bet I have had that happen at least five times over my coaching career. I always get a kick out of it.”

THE LEGEND OF BAGONZI AND THE RISE OF WALKER

Any discussion of Woodsville sports is incomplete if the late Dr. John Bagonzi is not mentioned at some point and, to be honest, at length.

Bagonzi’s stature in Woodsville and, indeed, New Hampshire, is legendary. A native of the town, he starred on Woodsville HS teams in the late 1940s in multiple sports, teaming with lifelong friend Bob Smith to give the Engineers an imposing 1-2 pitching punch in baseball.

Both later signed professional contracts with the Boston Red Sox – Smith in 1948 and Bagonzi in 1953. Smith lasted 17 years in the pro ranks (1948 to 1964), including five seasons in the bigs with the Red Sox, Cardinals, Pirates and Tigers.

Bagonzi first went to the University of New Hampshire upon graduation from Woodsville where he starred in both baseball and basketball. While at UNH, he was considered to be the top collegiate pitching prospect in New England. Although signed by the Sox in ‘53 and assigned to the organization’s AAA affiliate in San Francisco, military service interrupted his baseball career. Bagonzi served two years in the U.S. Army as a commissioned officer.

He returned to baseball in 1956, briefly pitching for the Red Sox organization before arm trouble ended that dream after eight games.

With a Master’s degree from Indiana University and pursuing his Ph.D, Bagonzi returned to Woodsville where he went on to exert his remarkable influence as a high school coach and educator for more than a quarter of a century.

Bagonzi coached multiple sports, but his most significant impact came in baseball and basketball where he guided Woodsville teams to 12 state titles – seven in baseball and five in basketball.

Of particular note, 10 of those championships came during the span from 1968 to 1977 in Class M (Division III). On four occasions, Woodsville won the “Daily Double” – basketball and baseball championships in the same school year.

Two of his baseball pitchers – Steve Blood (1971) and Jim MacDonald (1977) – were drafted by major league teams. Blood pitched five years in the Minnesota Twins organization, while MacDonald threw for seven seasons with various Houston Astros farm clubs. Bagonzi also instructed Chad Paronto, a 1993 Woodsville HS grad and son of a former player, Dana Paronto, who at one time held the NHIAA Class M hoop tournament record for most points in a championship game (34, 1971). Chad pitched seven years in the majors with four teams, enjoying his best seasons with the Atlanta Braves in 2006 and 2007.

In 1964, when Woodsville won the Class M baseball title over Charlestown, 3-2, the winning run was scored on a squeeze bunt in extra innings. Hits were hard to come by in that game for the Engineers, who managed just two off Charlestown’s imposing junior ace, a strapping lad whose name still resonates across the state – Carlton Fisk.

Bagonzi won 361 games as a basketball coach and recorded 261 wins in baseball. He has been inducted into multiple halls of fame. In 1991, the year he retired from teaching, the community building in Woodsville was renamed in his honor – the John A. Bagonzi Community Building.

In 2001, Bagonzi wrote “The Act of Pitching” – a definitive study on what it takes to become an accomplished pitcher. Hall of Famer Bob Feller called it “The best book on pitching that I have ever read.” It was reprinted with updates in 2006.

Although coach Walker never played for Bagonzi, he knew of him and can recall as a kid growing up in Woodsville going to games coached by Bagonzi. In fact, the Bagonzis were neighbors of the Walkers, and later in life Bagonzi and his wife, Dreamer, wintered in central Florida. For a number of years, they would spend a week with Walker’s parents enjoying Red Sox spring training games in Fort Myers, Fla.

Walker himself played for the Engineers in the 1980s, graduating in 1988 as the school’s second player to reach 1,000 points.

He attended Boston University, graduating with a degree in Human Movement (essentially physical education). He eventually came back to Woodsville and then athletic director Mike Ackerman asked him if he had any interest in coaching JV boys basketball. Walker said yes.

It was 1998. The following year the varsity coach left for a position a little farther north at Profile HS in Bethlehem. Walker was hired as the varsity coach.

He had no long-term goals or aspirations. “I kind of took it year by year,” he recalled. 

In the first five years he remembers three of those years being pretty bad – one win, two wins, no wins.

Current Woodsville basketball coach Jamie Walker, center, is pictured during his playing days for the Engineers, circa 1988. [Courtesy photo]

“It was us and Belmont,” Walker said. “If we sweep the series we get two wins and they get zero. If we split we get one win. If they sweep the series we get zero. Those were our big games of the year. That was going to determine if we were going to win any games at all.”

At the time, Woodsville was still in Class M (D-III). Right around the end of those rough years the school moved down to Division IV and success followed. Although he was discouraged, Walker knew there were some good kids coming up. They won five games, then seven and eventually got to .500. They made the final in 2007, a 50-31 loss to Lisbon.

“As you know with any program, once you start winning, those kids who never played a game because (the team) was so bad, now want to play,” Walker said. “You start to go to Plymouth and they watch their buddies in a college gym. All of a sudden they want to play.”

Woodsville has been a constant in the tournament for the last 16 or 17 years, finally breaking through last year to win the title. This winter is Walker’s 24th with the Engineer program as a coach, 23 as their head coach.

Walker recalls interacting with Dr. Bagonzi. They both had the basketball connection at Woodsville as players and coaches, but their primary conversations centered around baseball.

Bagonzi, a respected pitching clinician, was the first person to coach Walker’s son Brendan, an aspiring pitcher, when he was younger. “He was the first one to work with him,” Walker recalled. “The second one who worked with him was a disciple of Mr. Bagonzi – Chris Lavoie.” 

Both had a lot to do with why Brendan will hopefully pitch for Stetson.

When Bagonzi was alive – he died in 2014 at 83 – he would drop by the Walker auto dealership in town. “He’d ask how the team was doing,” Walker said. Bagonzi would say, “I’m watching you” or something like that. Walker said they didn’t talk a ton of basketball.

But basketball was undeniably part of Bagonzi’s impressive resume. The five championships came in 1969, 1971, 1973, 1976 and 1977. There were also runner-up finishes in 1960, 1968 and 1975. Along with Bagonzi, names like Burrill, Blood, MacDonald, Pierson and Paronto are forever etched into Woodsville’s rich athletic lore.

The hallmark of those Bagonzi era teams was a fast-paced style. It featured withering full court pressure, which more often than not overwhelmed and demoralized the opposition. If you couldn’t figure out how to handle Woodsville’s vaunted pressure, it was pretty much guaranteed that a long and painful night was in store.

Knowing that history, it certainly made last season’s run to the title all the more compelling and satisfying.

“Growing up you heard a lot about those ‘70s’ teams coached by Mr. Bagonzi,” said Mike Maccini, a third cousin of the great coach. “They’re pretty legendary. There was definitely that 44-year (drought) hanging over us going into the tournament, especially when we got down to the final four and the championship.”

POISED TO DEFEND

Going into the 2021-22 season, Woodsville found itself cast as a favorite, something it hadn’t experienced since the Bagonzi teams of the 1970s.

“Last year there wasn’t much pressure on us,” Flocke said. “We weren’t expected to do much. This year it’s definitely different. We just have to play like we don’t have a bull’s eye on our back; play like the bull’s eye on every team we play against.”

So far, mission accomplished. The Engineers have maintained their resolve.

The Woodsville boys’ basketball team jubilantly returns home as 2021 Division IV state champions, the town’s first hoop crown since 1977. [Arinn Roy photo]

“Last season’s over,” Walker said. “Nobody cares about last season. Yeah, we’ve done well so far. The important season is coming up. We’ve got to stay focused for that. That’s what I think they do at practice. They have a long-term goal that keeps them going.”

It was good for Woodsville, in retrospect, that the one Lin-Wood game and the two Littleton games got postponed to the end. Instead of finishing their season on Feb. 15 and waiting almost two weeks for their first playoff game, the Engineers were able to stay active.

“It will give us a good idea of what we need to work on going into the playoffs,” Walker said.

The coach has worked hard to keep the team focused and not let them get too full of themselves. It’s been hard because the North Country usually has three or four top-tier teams. This year it’s Woodsville and, really, everybody else. The Engineers beat Littleton, the second best team in the north, by 24 and 21 points, respectively, in the past week.

Walker noted that the second Littleton game on Wednesday, although they won by 21, it was a five-point game in the third quarter. “It was good to have that game leading up to the playoffs,” he said. “Because you’re going to see those types of games in the playoffs.”

With its four starters back, and then a rotating trio of youngsters completing the set as the fifth starter, Woodsville is extremely good. Flocke made this concise analysis of why Woodsville is tough to play against. “We never let up,” he said. “We work hard every minute that we’re out there. One of the biggest things is that we put constant pressure on the ball. We’re always trapping, playing man to man defense as much as we can.”

Tenney-Burt is a bonafide scorer. In late January, he scored his 1,000th career point during a game at Colebrook. His numbers include his freshman year at Lisbon.

“He can shoot,” Walker said. “He can take it to the basket. He’s not just a jump shooter. He may have started that way his sophomore year, but now the last couple of years he’s been more active about taking the ball to the basket, scoring in different ways, instead of just relying on the outside shot.”

Davidson is the Engineers’ inside presence. “I think that’s something we were missing until last year,” Walker said. “I think we really started getting him in the post and getting easy baskets. We were a team that kind of relied on the outside game quite a bit. Last year he was able to get us layups and get to the foul line, get us easy buckets.”

Flocke is the team’s top defender. He always guards the best player on the other team. Walker said he has also developed his shot over the last couple of years. “He’s invaluable,” the coach said. “He is so good at both ends of the floor. He’s a worker.”

In December, Flocke missed four or five practices. “I told my assistants, ‘these practices are half what they are when you have Elijah here with his energy.’”

Maccini has done a nice job slipping into his new role as a dependable point guard. “He’s not going to hurt you,” Walker said. “He may not be the flashiest guy out there, but he makes the right decisions. He can hit open shots and play good defense. He’s a solid point guard. The key to everything is not turning it over. He doesn’t turn it over.”

Having those four back, a year older, stronger and better, has certainly elevated Woodsville’s status, not only in the north, but in the state.

“When you lose one player and you won it last year, you’ve got to win it again?” Walker said. “We told the kids obviously when you win it there’s a target on your back. There’s some good teams in the south that some people think are as good if not better than us. A lot of people think Concord Christian is better than us.”

Let them think that, Walker feels. “I’ll take my five and my team against those guys down there and see how we do.”

The other three who share minutes at the fifth spot as well as providing valuable minutes off the bench to spell the other four starters are freshmen Landon Kingsbury and Connor Newcomb, and sophomore Jack Boudreault. “They’re three kind of different players,” Walker said. “It all depends on what the other team is doing. … We use what the other team is doing to determine how we rotate those three. We mix and match with what we need at the time.”

The south does have some top-notch teams. Along with No. 2 Concord Christian (17-1), No. 3 Epping (14-4), No. 5 Portsmouth Christian (14-4), No. 6 Holy Family (14-4) and No. 7 Derryfield (12-6) have all been very solid.

“Is the talent in the south?” Walker asked. “It may well be. We’ll find out when the playoffs start.”

Truth.

RIM NOTES. Going into this week, Tenney-Burt was leading the Engineers in scoring (18.8 ppg). He is followed by Flocke (11.7), Davidson (8.7), Kingsbury (7.8) and Maccini (6.0). … Dr. Bagonzi coached Woodsville to 13 state titles in all. His last came in 1988 in girls cross country. … Since then and before last year, the Engineers have had some success in other sports. The girls soccer squads won back-to-back crowns in Class M-S in 1993 and 1994. Boys soccer hit pay dirt in Class S in 2004 and 2005, and softball is the most recent to capture titles in Class S (2010, 2013) as well as last spring. … Carlton Fisk is mentioned above for baseball, but he loved basketball and was quite good at it. In fact, he still holds a Class M (Division III) tournament record for field goals in a single game with 19 (drained in 1965 semis) that he shares with Woodsville’s Stephen Elliott, who hit the same number in 1964. Elliott also shares the tourney mark for most points in a game (45) with Farmington’s Tim Lee.

For feedback or story ideas, email jamsession@ball603.com.

Holmes court advantage: Passion and consistency

By Mike Whaley

EXETER – Jeff Holmes’ enthusiasm for basketball, which spans 50-plus years, shows no signs of diminishing.

“I’ve always been passionate about basketball,” said Holmes, who recently completed his 25th year as the head coach of the boys team at Exeter High School and his 34th overall. “I played a lot when I was a kid. I really enjoyed the sport. I’ll watch it on a Saturday or go to a game and drive my wife nuts with basketball. I like it.”

Holmes has enjoyed a pretty good run. After playing three years at the University of Maine in Orono, in the late 1980s, his first coaching stop in northern Maine at Caribou High School yielded seven playoff appearances in nine years. In his 25 years in Exeter the Blue Hawks have made 24 Division I playoffs, winning back-to-back D-I state titles in 2019 and 2020. The 2019 team went 24-0, winning the school’s first state title in 42 years. 

His overall coaching record is 439-311.

Exeter High School went undefeated during the 2018-19 season to win the Division I state boys basketball championship under Jeff Holmes, its first title since 1977. [Courtesy photo]

After going 53-2 the previous three seasons, this past year Holmes had to completely revamp a team that lost its first six players. He did so with great success. No. 7 Exeter went 13-7 overall, beating 10th-seeded Nashua South in the first round of the D-I tournament, 67-58, before taking No. 2 Nashua North to the wire in a tightly contested 57-54 loss.

“I like to get a team to the next level,” Holmes said. “If it’s an average team, get that team to be a good team. If you’re a good team, try to get that team to be a very good team. My mindset is to try and get better every day in the gym.”

At 57, he is also one of the elder statesmen in the state’s coaching circles. Holmes remains involved outside of his own program helping to grow the sport around the state as a long-time member and past president of the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization and past member of the NHIAA Basketball Committee.

Three generations of Holmes are pictured in 2012: Jeff, right, with his daughter Hillary and dad, Steve. The trio celebrates Exeter’s Division I spring track and field championship, which Hillary helped win by scoring 38 points. [Courtesy photo]

“When I first started out he was a guy I was able to talk to about the challenges of being a varsity coach,” said Jay McKenna, who recently completed his 17th year as the Winnacunnet HS head coach. “He was very helpful and he’s a guy I consider to be a very good friend.”

Holmes’ formative years in basketball date back to the early 1970s growing up in the southwest corner of the state as the son of a coach.

His dad, Steve Holmes, was the head boys hoop coach at Fall Mountain Regional High School in Langdon where he coached the team from the late 1960s until the late 1970s. His 1973 team won the Class I (Division II) state championship.

“I was always going to the gym with him,” Jeff remembers. “I got into basketball basically because of my dad.”

Steve Holmes at 85 is in his 60th year of coaching. He is a throws coach with the track and field team at Phillips Exeter Academy.

He remembers Jeff, the youngest of the three Holmes’ children, always having a real affection “for anything round. He was shooting nerf balls when he was 2 or 3 years old.”

The Holmes family lived off the beaten track on a dirt road in Westmoreland, a small town west of Keene. Steve recalls building a nice hoop on the back side of the garage and asphalting the area around the basket. “For the next 10 to 12 years (Jeff) would just go outside and shoot non-stop,” Steve said. “There was no one close by, so he had to make up all these games. He had a lot of fun doing that. He became an amazing shooter.”

Exeter coach Jeff Holmes, right, confers with Josh Morissette during the undefeated 2018-19 season. [Mike Whaley photo]

Steve, of course, got to follow his son’s evolution first hand. He even coached a Westmoreland team of fourth and fifth graders when Jeff was in fifth grade. He recalls one game vs. St. Charles of Bellows Falls, Vermont, a game Westmoreland won 31-29. Jeff scored all of his team’s points.

“That was a precursor of things to come,” Steve said.

His dad added,” I knew Jeff had a good competitive edge. When he was in third grade, he’d come up to Fall Mountain if he had a day off. He would take on some of the (high school) players in a game of HORSE. I don’t think he ever lost. He was only 9 years old.”

Jeff went on to star at Keene High School, becoming the school’s first 1,000-point scorer in the days before the 3-point shot. As a senior in 1983, the Blackbirds earned the No. 1 seed in the Class L tournament, but were upset in the quarterfinal round.

He drew plenty of college interest, including from Rick Pitino, then the coach at Boston University. Pitino, of course, is still coaching, having guided teams at both the college and pro level in a nearly 50-year career. He has two NCAA national championships under his belt.

Pitino came to the Holmes house in Westmoreland to recruit Jeff, decked out in a pinstripe suit. He walked into their house and, as Steve recalled, said,” This is the first recruiting trip I’ve ever made on a dirt road.”

Jeff accepted a scholarship to Boston University, but never played under Pitino. On the eve of the season, the coach took a position as an assistant with the New York Knicks – a season that Jeff ended up spending on the BU bench.

He transferred to Maine the following year, where he played from 1985 to 1988, serving as a captain in his senior season.

One of the highlights that Steve enjoys relates to a game with visiting Michigan State, coached by Jud Heathcoate, during Jeff’s sophomore season.

Michigan State had a 15-point lead with a couple of minutes to go, and both teams began clearing their respective benches. Jeff went in.

“Jeff took seven shots, all 3s, and drained them,” Steve recalled of Jeff’s 21 points in three minutes. “Jud didn’t know what happened. The eighth (shot) was a toilet seater – it went around the rim two or three times and bounced out.”

Michigan State reinserted its starters, but it was too late. Jeff’s heroics had ignited a late game-winning surge for Maine.

Not long after that, Jeff appeared in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd” section, and was also mentioned in the publication’s story on the 3-point shot changing the complexion of the game of basketball. “Jeff was a pioneer,” his dad said.

Jeff graduated from Maine in 1988. He applied for and got his first job as a physical education teacher and basketball coach in Caribou.

It was a great experience. It’s where he met his wife, Janel.

“They love basketball in Aroostook County,” he said. Caribou is located three hours north of Bangor, so it’s not a place where you can jump in the car and easily drive to a college or pro game. “They had a nice gymnasium, similar to Exeter’s now,” Jeff said. “We had great crowds. They loved hoop.”

The chance to return to New Hampshire was alluring, so when a teaching and coaching post opened in Exeter, Holmes jumped at it. “It’s worked out well for me,” he said.

“It’s been a good fit for me,” added Holmes, who also coached track and field for 29 years in Maine and N.H. “Both are very different. One is more blue collar – farm boys. Exeter is not that way.”

Holmes immediately stepped into a competitive situation his first year (1997-98). “We were really good,” he said. “We made it all the way to the state finals. We lost to (Matt) Bonner and Concord. I was fortunate. I came in and we had a quality team.”

It was a good lesson, too.

During the regular season, Exeter lost to Concord by 10, but it was a two-point game with three minutes to go. Bonner, who went on to play at Florida and then enjoyed a long career in the National Basketball Association, scored 40-plus points.

“I outsmarted myself in the finals,” laughs Holmes as his team lost to Concord, 73-44, despite holding Bonner to 17 points. “I devised some defense to double team Bonner. They still beat us by 30. They had a good team. It wasn’t just him. I won’t do that again. You don’t change what you are come tournament time.”

Holmes continued to try and get better. “I went to a lot of clinics to try to improve and learn stuff,” he said. “Sometimes I get myself doing too much. You do too much, you can overload the kids. You kind of go backwards. That old saying: “Keep it simple, stupid.”

Holmes believes he had some good years up in Maine because he kept it really simple.

“Sometimes you learn and try to incorporate more stuff,’ Holmes said. “You can put too much in and be too complicated. I’ve caught myself doing that as I’ve gotten older. … You still have your nuts and bolts, what you do offensively and defensively, and get good at that.”

Holmes said he learned a lot from his dad and Exeter’s athletic director Bill Ball, who is also the school’s football coach.

“He was a real energy guy,” Holmes said of his dad. “He loved it. He was knowledgeable as a coach. I try to incorporate those things into my coaching. Be enthusiastic. Work the kids hard.”

From Ball he learned how to run a program, including how to increase your participation numbers. “I developed that over the years,” Holmes said. “We’ve got good numbers for freshman and JV. We have a lot of competition for spots.”

One thing Holmes has gleaned over time is that you have to coach the personality of the kid, and not treat everyone the same. He has also understood the value of embracing the whole program. “In basketball, sometimes you get caught up with your three best players,” Holmes said. “I try not to do that. To run a program, you’ve got to coach the 45 kids. I’ve learned about emphasizing the program, doing things the right way, the wins will come.”

Consistency has been key. “I have the same philosophy,” Holmes said. “I coach for the program; not just the top guys.”

Holmes is not a loud coach. It’s not his style. “It’s hard to be a yeller and a screamer these days,” he said. “You’re not going to last too long. … The way I look at it I’m more of a teacher. I don’t have to yell and scream at my kids if they’re playing hard. For the most part they play really hard.”

His dad sees that as a huge strength. “He has a really good demeanor and knows how to interact with the athletes really well,” Steve said. “To this day, he’s only got one technical (foul). He’s involved with the game and very close to the kids, but not enough where it spoils the coach/athlete relationship.”

McKenna thinks consistency is what has helped Holmes to stay in the game so long at the high school level where coaching attrition runs high. “He’s even keeled, he’s good with the kids, and the kids respect him,” McKenna said. “That goes a long way. … It’s Jeff’s consistency. You know what you’re getting with Jeff. The kids understand that.”

Holmes has also been a proponent of kids playing multiple sports. When he coached track and field, he’d try to get basketball players to give it a try. “A lot of times they found a lot of success in it,” he said.

There’s been a lot of positives over the years. Holmes’ teams have done well, and he’s even had the chance to coach both of his children – Hillary in track and field and Bryant in basketball.

When the state championship teams came along, he recalls those squads being set up to some extent by the agony of defeat.

In the 2018 semifinals at UNH, No. 2 Exeter had a lead at halftime against No. 11 Dover, but somehow lost a point when the game’s two official scorekeepers inexplicably counted a 3-pointer by Cody Morissette as a two. They actually went to the locker room up nine (38-29), and when they returned it was 36-29, although the score should have been 37-29.

Exeter was not the same team in the second half. Dover was able to catch them and upset them by two points. “That really focused those guys for next year when we went undefeated,” Holmes said. “That experience can also help you.”

The 2019 state championship was Exeter’s first in 42 years. The undefeated Blue Hawks were dominant in a season where just two of their games had winning margins of under 10 points. “We had a lot of talent and the kids came to play every day for practice and games,” Holmes said. “That’s a lot of pressure when you’re the best team. The best team doesn’t always win it.”

He added, “We hadn’t won it since 1977. There was some pressure. I was feeling it a little bit from my end. It was a great relief when we did win it.”

Although there was success the two years after that, there was also frustration because of the pandemic.

Exeter ended up losing one game in 2020, sharing the D-I championship with Portsmouth when the pandemic forced the tournament to be canceled after the first round. Exeter earned a first-round bye as the top seed, but it never got the chance to play a single playoff game.

Last year, the Blue Hawks went undefeated during the shortened regular season (13-0). However, due to the tournament’s random draw format that was used they had to play rival Winnacunnet in the second round for a fourth time. Exeter had won all three meetings during the season, but the Warriors caught them in the tourney with an overtime win. Winnacunnet ended up advancing to the championship game where it fell to Bishop Guertin.

“In my opinion, we were the best and they were the second best,” Holmes said. “We just couldn’t beat them a fourth time.”

Something that refreshed Holmes’ coaching experience came along unexpectedly in 2016. His friend and former teammate at Maine, Jim Boylen, was an assistant coach at the time in the NBA with the Chicago Bulls. He asked Holmes to help out scouting games at Boston’s TD Garden.

Over a two-year span, Holmes did 8 to 10 games a year when the Bulls needed him.

It was a lot of work, but a great gig. Most of the time, Holmes had to go on a school day during his basketball season. Often he’d have practice and then head to Boston.

There were a few times when he had to turn down an assignment when it conflicted with an Exeter game.

“I didn’t tell them you’ve got to guard Stephen Curry,” Holmes said with a laugh. “I had to jot down the time and the play they ran at the time. Just chart every possession they do. I learned a lot. It was kind of an eye-opener for me.”

The seating for scouts was courtside, which made it fun to be right on top of the action. He recalls that first season enjoying the games because the Celtics had Isaiah Thomas, and he was a pleasure to watch.

“It helped me out a lot as a coach,” Holmes said. “I had to do a lot of prep work before to learn the terminology that they use, and different sets that these teams run. It was pretty cool that way, at that point in my career to get rejuvenated a little bit, learning all this new stuff.”

Holmes said some of the NBA stuff rubbed off on his coaching. “The situational stuff,” he said. “After timeouts, end-of-game coaching. I run versions of a lot of stuff I learned as far as set plays.”

It was a different experience for Holmes from when he’d go to a game to watch for fun. “When you’re scouting, you really break it down,” he said. “What’s happening off the ball? What type of screens are they using? You’ve got to dive a lot deeper into it. That was good for me.”

He’s glad he got the chance. “Not only was it a great experience, but I got paid,” Holmes said.

In the twilight of his career, Holmes sees the end in sight, but it’s not immediate. “I enjoy it,” he said. “I think I’ll ride it out until I retire from teaching.” Which, he figures, is around 65.

“I don’t think I’d coach and not teach,” he said. “Being there in the school is a good thing.”

Speaking of good things, having Jeff Holmes on a basketball sideline certainly fits into that category.

Reese brothers at heart of Gilford’s rise to the top

By Mike Whaley

GILFORD – In the last couple years, Gilford has clearly emerged as the top high school boys basketball team in Division III. The presence of at least two Reese brothers in the lineup hasn’t hurt.

The Golden Eagles shared the 2020 title with Mascenic when the tournament was cut short after the semifinal round due to the Covid-19 pandemic. They won the title outright in 2021, beating Hopkinton in the final, 42-40.

With the current season set to wrap up this weekend, Gilford leads the D-III standings with a 15-1 record. Over the last three seasons the Golden Eagles are a remarkable 48-3.

Jalen and Isaiah Reese have played key roles in that continued success.

Jalen is a 6-foot-6 junior point guard, while Isaiah is a 6-2 sophomore wing. Last season, Jalen was named to the D-III All-State First Team, the only sophomore across all divisions in New Hampshire to earn first-team distinction.

Gilford has a very solid lineup that makes a shot at a three-peat well within reach. In addition to the Reeses, coach Rick Acquilano’s solid lineup also features 6-foot-2 senior point guard Riley Marsh, 5-11 senior point forward Austin Normandin and 6-5 junior big guy Sam Cheek. Senior Mitch Pratt is a dependable first player off the bench.

All six played on last year’s championship team.

Gilford plays a fast-paced game, pressing on defense and pushing the ball on offense. As a point guard, Jalen pilots the offense. “He can lead us in rebounding,” the coach said. “He leads us in assists. He can lead us in scoring on any given night.

“He’s a really complete player,” the coach said. “He has a good sense of the floor. He’s becoming more assertive, which is good for us.”

Acquilano succinctly calls Isaiah, well, a freight train. “He’s the quarterback on the football team,” the coach said. “He’s probably a little more physical.”

Both Reeses play football. Jalen was the quarterback two years ago, but missed this past season because of surgery. He plans to play next year, but won’t challenge his brother for the QB position. Jalen sees himself possibly at wide receiver, setting up a potentially dangerous Reese-to-Reese connection.

Coach Acquilano said that Isaiah runs the floor well and defends at a high level. The sophomore, who played valuable minutes last year off the bench as a freshman, is also able to hit the 3-pointer. “He just has a lot of energy on the floor for us,” said Acquilano, in his third year as Gilford’s coach and athletic director. He returned to New Hampshire after a long stint in Ohio, but has roots here as a coach. He was Bow High School’s inaugural hoop coach in 1997 when that school opened, holding the post for five years. He also coached at Belmont.

Acquilano replaced long-time coach Chip Veazey, who coached Gilford for 35 years and over 400 wins, including its first state title in 2004.

The brothers are 1-2 on the team in scoring with Isaiah leading the way (15.2 ppg) and Jalen right behind him (13.8 ppg). Jalen’s stat line, however, goes well beyond points. He is also averaging a team-high 8.5 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 2.4 blocks per game, as well as being second in steals (2.8). Isaiah chips in with nearly three rebounds and four steals, along with 3.4 assists per contest.

Last year the duo teamed with their older brother, Malik, to lead the Golden Eagles to the state title.

Two years ago, Malik and Jalen helped Gilford to win the 2020 title.

Malik was known for his defense, which has rubbed off on his younger brothers. “I liked (playing with him),” Isaiah said. “I learned a lot from him, mostly that defense is the most important part. That’s what his game revolved around.”

Jalen begrudgingly agreed. “He was definitely better at defense than me,” he said. “Last year at least.”

Although all three played multiple sports growing up, last season was the first time that all three played together on the same team. “We actually didn’t think we were going to get along,” Jalen said. “We don’t usually (get along) at the house. But it was fun.”

Especially being on the floor together to take in the championship moment. “It was exciting,” Jalen said. “It’s a memory I’ll have for my whole life.”

Gilford’s success can be tied to its defense, a halfcourt matchup zone press that can create all kinds of problems.

“It’s a nightmare trying to get the ball across halfcourt,” said St. Thomas Aquinas coach Sean Murphy. “They turn a turnover into two points quickly. It’s a perfect defense for their length and athleticism.”

That defense allows Gilford to play its uptempo game. “We really want to push the play and play in the open floor well,” said coach Acquilano. ”That’s what we’ve relied on the last two years. We run the floor and defensively work hard on holding people to one shot.”

Marsh is the key to the defense. He’s on top of the zone, a “one-man press harassing the ball,” said Acquilano. “He really sets the tempo for us defensively. He gets his hands on a lot of things. He has tenacity. A lot of the grit we play with is initiated by Riley.”

The Reese brothers create matchup problems for opposing defenses. “You put a big guy on them and they go by him,” Murphy said. “Put a small guy on them, and they take him down low.”

Additionally, teams can’t just focus on the Reese brothers, because Gilford has alternate quality scoring options in Marsh, Cheek and Normandin. Marsh is third on the team in scoring (11.5), second in assists (4.1) and leads in steals (4.1). Cheek is averaging a very tidy 8.6 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, while the scrappy, physical Normandin contributes 4.1 points and 4.3 rebounds per game. Pratt (5.4 ppg) is a solid sixth man.

“You try to take away something, you have to pick and choose,” Murphy said of Gilford. “It’s difficult. They have weapons all over the place.”

All teams at some point in a season face adversity. Gilford’s came in unlikely fashion. During a game with White Mountains on Jan. 21 (a 46-35 win), Jalen was surprisingly assessed with two technical fouls – one for hanging on the rim after a partially-missed dunk that he actually tipped in and the second for saying something under his breath to a teammate regarding the first technical. Coach Acquilano felt both Ts were questionable.

The bottom line, however, was that the two infractions carried an automatic one-game suspension from the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA). A Gilford school policy mandated suspension for a second game.

Three days later, without Jalen in the lineup, Gilford lost its first game of the year, 53-51, at Mascoma.

“We talked about resiliency,” coach Acquilano said. “In the course of a season that’s three and a half months long, things aren’t always going to go your way. You have to find a way through things if you’re going to be that team.”

Gilford battled at Mascoma, but fell at the end. Which may be a good thing. “We have our eyes on the prize,” Acquilano said. “I’m not sure if being undefeated in that pursuit would complicate things down the stretch or not. It didn’t change our outlook, but it actually helped us tighten up the ship.”

Acquilano said everyone took responsibility for going to Mascoma and not playing well, including Jalen for not being available.

In fact, since returning to the lineup Jalen has played even better. His scoring numbers have gone up. “He’s increased his game,” Acquilano said. “In missing that time, you can see him cranking it up a little. I want him to. He’s such an unselfish player. There are times when I want him to be more selfish.”

The Golden Eagles have stayed atop the standings, navigating the weaker part of their schedule without letting down after a tough loss. They also had statement wins over quality tournament teams in Winnisquam and St. Thomas by 30-plus points. Jalen had 17 points in each of those two wins, while Isaiah had 20 and 12.

“We’ve got to focus,” Isaiah said. “I think we can’t play down to the competition. We have to rise above anybody that we play.”

As an example, Isaiah said, the team, despite winning big, is able to reset the score at halftime to 0-0. “See if we can win that half,” Isaiah said. “Take it piece by piece.”

“We can’t become complacent,” Jalen added. “We’re not as good as we think we are. … We just have to realize that we have to get better every day. That’s our motto. We’ve got to keep working and getting better.”

For Jalen, getting better means, believe it or not, gaining more confidence, especially in his ability to shoot. “I don’t believe I can shoot sometimes,” he said. “I know physically I can. Sometimes it just comes down to confidence for me.”

Isaiah says he needs to work on his footwork and improve his ability to pull up and shoot off the dribble.

It’s all about getting better.

Both want to play sports at the next level: Jalen eyes college basketball, while Isaiah is leaning toward football.

Gilford plays its final game Friday at Berlin. The 15-team tournament starts Tuesday with opening-round games. The Golden Eagles will likely earn a first-round bye, which means their first game will be in the quarterfinals Friday, Feb. 18, at home. The semis are set for Feb. 22 at Bedford High School with the championship scheduled for Feb. 26 at Keene State College.

“I think there’s nine good teams out there,” Acquilano said. “Any of those teams can cause problems for anybody. We’ll get the winner of 8-9, which means a good team will be walking into our gym.”

As the first step towards a third straight state title, the Reese boys and Gilford wouldn’t have it any other way.

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