Junior Jack Krasnof tallied a career-high 39 points to lead Derryfield to a 68-38 win over visiting Epping on Monday night in Manchester. The Cougars held the Blue Devils to just four first quarter points and never looked back as they cruised to the big win. Epping was paced by Henry Hodgkins with a team-high 16 points.
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, 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.”
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.”
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.
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, 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.”
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, 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.
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.
GAME-WINNER: Trailing by two in the waining moments on the road, Raymond senior Nate McGrath buries this game-winner with nine seconds on the clock to beat Epping, 50-49, on Monday night and keep the Rams playoff hopes alive.
Epping started slow, but finished strong as the Blue Devils came away with a 59-45 win over Farmington on Wednesday night in Epping. The Blue Devils trailed 16-12 after one, but took a one-point lead to the break and then opened things up in with an 18-9 third quarter that proved to be too much for the Tigers.
The Blue Devils were paced by Owen Finkelstein’s 18 points, 12 coming in the second half, while teammates Mike Picard (16 points) and Stamatis Maschas (11) chipped in with double digits. Farmington was paced 13 points from Brian Weeks and 10 from Jeffrey DiPrizio.
The loss snaps the Tigers’ four-game win streak and evens their record at 4-4, while Epping improves to 8-2 on the season.
Check out 4K video highlights of last night’s action…
By KJ Cardinal
With the win over previously unbeaten Epping on Friday night, the Derryfield Cougars appear to be hitting their mid-season stride just in time for the toughest portion of their Division IV slate and they are being fueled by an emerging freshman with a familiar name.
Thomas Ferdinando, son of Keith Ferdinando (Manchester Central ’88) is a do-it-all point guard for a deep Derryfield squad that currently sits at 4-1 on the season. Thomas is averaging nearly 22 points per game, including 26 in the big win over Epping.
“Basketball is life for Thomas,” said third-year head coach Ed Meade. “He is practicing, shooting or playing at all times. He’s a really hard worker and a very smart player. He knows the game and is 100% dedicated.”
His dedication on the court shows as he has a well-rounded game and veteran-like poise in the big moment. Down the stretch versus Epping, the Andover, Mass. native was unflappable, making savvy, winning plays at the most crucial of times.
“We purposely put our best defenders on him every day in practice, Janai Cruz or Alex Camire, and it doesn’t bother Thomas,” added Meade. “He’s very poised and has all the confidence in the world. I think his confidence is a factor of him playing so much basketball. He plays AAU in the offseason down in Mass. with some of the top players in Eastern Mass.”
Ferdinando is a member of the highly touted Middlesex Magic AAU team, which was home to the Miami Heat’s Duncan Robinson the Milwaukee Bucks’ Pat Cannaughton. “Thomas has a lot of opportunity to pick up a lot of knowledge during his AAU time and he takes advantage of it,” said Meade.
While he puts in the time all year round, Thomas also has family lineage on his side.
“He comes from a long line of good basketball players. His dad [Keith at Central] and uncles [Mark and Greg at Trinity] were all very good players in high school. His dad was a standout player at Bates College up in Maine.”
In fact, Keith helped lead Central to a 1988 Class L Runner-Up finish and later went on to become a 1,000-point scorer (1,140) at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
Ferdinando and the Cougars will be put to the test on Tuesday as they head to Concord Christian Academy for a highly anticipated match-up with the Kingsmen. CCA is 5-1 on the season with its only loss coming at Epping when the Kingsmen were without three players, including senior sensation Isaac Jarvis.
“We’ve got to rebound well and play hard,” said Ferdinando. “They’ve got size.”
Coach Meade echoed the freshman’s sentiments, “We’ll have our hands full on Tuesday. We have some plans for what we want to do defensively, but it’s a tough matchup for us with their size. We have very little size, so hopefully we can stay with them and make a statement that we’re a pretty good basketball team, win or lose.”
Derryfield may lack size, but that didn’t seem to slow the Cougars down on Friday when they took down an Epping squad with depth in the front court. Whether Derryfield can knock off CCA or not, the future is bright for the Cougars with Ferdinando at the helm.
Derryfield (4-1) defeated previously unbeaten Epping (5-1) on Friday night, 73-63, in Manchester. Check out highlights of the action…
By Mike Whaley
Note: First in a three-part series on the state’s 2,000-point high school basketball scorers.
There was a time when it seemed like, well, it was raining 2,000 points.
From 1983 to 1999, 15 of New Hampshire’s 16 double-century point scorers reached that milestone (see accompanying list). One has done it since.
While we may see 2,000-point scorers at some point in the future, there is simply no way that special basketball era will come close to being replicated.
THE GIRLS GOT IT STARTED
There is a symmetry to the list.
The first four players to reach the milestone were all female, and the last to hit the mark in 2007 was also a girl (Mascoma’s Tonya Young). In between, 11 guys hit the mark.
Those first four women all played in Class S/Division IV, and all played in the 1980s.
Henniker’s Karen Wood was the first player in N.H. to hit 2,000 in 1983, and she remains the highest scoring female with 2,677 points, and is second in N.H. overall. Only Nute’s David Burrows has scored more (2,845).
While her career was winding down at Henniker where she led the team to four consecutive Class S championships (1980 to 1984), Epping’s Kerry Bascom and Nute’s Julie Donlon were just getting started.
As was the case then and still holds true today, athletes in Class S/Division IV are allowed to play varsity high school sports in seventh and eighth grade. Wood, Bascom and Donlon, as well as Orford’s Cynthia Thomson, all played varsity as eighth graders.
While Donlon and Bascom had a long history playing against each other, they did meet up with Wood at least once – during the 1984 Class S tournament. Bascom’s Epping team was locked in a close game in the quarters down two points, but with 45 seconds to play Bascom injured her ankle and had to leave the game. Henniker was able to hold on for the win.
Henniker met Nute and Donlon in the final, claiming an easy 74-38 victory.
There is no doubt that these girls benefitted from an extra year to reach 2,000 points. But it should be noted that all five females who hit the milestone went on to play at the NCAA Division I level. Bascom is generally regarded as the state’s greatest female player having taken her college game to UConn where she played for Geno Auriemma as his first big star.
At the time, Donlon and Bascom not only played against each other, but also with each other on AAU teams, at a time when that concept was in its infancy. They played and more than held their own with girls from bigger schools, like Nashua with Celeste Lavoie, Becky Shrigley, and Stephanie Byrd.
“We just played together for five years. … We were playing with all those girls, so we knew we could play,” Bascom told Seacoastonline in 2021.
In fact, the first two years that Bascom and Donlon played AAU, there was no New Hampshire team. They traveled to Massachusetts to play on a team made up of N.H. girls, until Mass. said enough is enough. They had to form their own N.H. team, which happened with Nashua’s John Fagula as the coach
It was a competitive rivalry between the two women.
“We were friends, but we were competitive when it came to Epping-Nute,” Donlon told Seacoastonline last year. “When we got on the floor, that was over. The gym was always packed. Standing room only.”
Bascom said they scored their 1,000th career point a game apart. Ditto for their 2,000th point.
BOYS GET THEIR GROOVE GOING
By the end of the 1980s, the boys started getting in on the act. Tom Brayshaw, who starred at Kearsarge for Marty Brown, was the first to hit the mark in 1989. Kearsarge was well known for its fast-paced style, reminiscent of the Loyola Marymount teams of that college era coached by Paul Westhead that routinely scored over 100 points and led the nation in scoring three years running.
Brayshaw was the state’s recognized top boys’ scorer for all of 10 months. He surpassed 2,000 points in February of 1989, and in December of that year, Burrows passed him, and still holds the record to this day.
It was a deluge at that point. Nine more boys followed until 1999.
“What it is, you had a perfect storm,” said Pembroke’s Matt Alosa, who scored 2,575 points, the most by a four-year player. “You didn’t have the social media scenario you have going on now. Kids only play when there’s some organized event. They no longer live in the park. I lived in the park, every day, 7-8 hours a day.”
That was a common denominator. Players of that era had a passion for the game at a young age, and spent endless hours on the court. They not only played various forms of pickup games, but also worked individually to hone their games.
“When I was a little kid growing up – spring, summer and fall – I was in the park every day playing,” said Alosa, whose primary hot spots in Concord were the courts at Memorial Field and Fayette Street Park. “I got dropped off there. I wasn’t allowed to leave, but I could stay there anytime I wanted to, all day.”
Alosa said he knew when people were going to show up for games, whether it was full court or 3 on 3.
In the winter, he tagged along with his dad who was a high school coach at Bishop Brady and then Franklin at the time. “I can remember practicing when I’m 6, 7 and 8 years old,” Alosa said. “I practiced with the freshmen and the JVs, but I was in the gym for freshman, JV and varsity practices all day long.”
He recalls at age 13 playing with a bunch of college guys who he’d met in the park in a men’s league at the Concord prison.
As he got older, Alosa had a group of kids he played with. “I can remember being with my group of guys going from place to place to just play and find pickup games,” he said. “I was working out all the time. Sometimes pickup. Sometimes shootaround. I’d eat a sandwich under the basket with a Gatorade.”
Farmington’s Tim Lee recalls a similar upbringing when his dad was the high school coach. “I grew up in the gym at the start of my father’s career,” he said. That is where he developed his confidence and competitiveness.
“Part of that was growing up in the gym,” Lee said. “When I was in sixth and seventh grade, junior high, I was doing drills with the varsity players. … Growing up in a small town, I had the advantage of being able to run with the varsity guys and being around their summer leagues. I was always shooting at half time (of JV or varsity games) and after the games.”
Keith Friel also had a dad who was a coach, but his story is certainly different. Gerry Friel coached the University of New Hampshire men’s basketball team from 1969 to 1989, and the Friel family continued to make their home in Durham, even after Gerry finished coaching.
In addition to being able to walk to Lundholm gymnasium every day to play pickup, the Friels spent eight weeks of their summers in Exeter where Gerry ran the Phillips Exeter Academy basketball camp until Keith’s eight-grade year.
“I was born there during camp,” Keith said. “There wasn’t a ton to do so we did non-stop gyms. We did camp every week. And the girls’ week we would help out with officiating, running the scoreboard. We had a ball in our hand at all times. It was an overnight camp. They’d start at 8 in the morning and go until 9 at night. Since you’re around that, you’re around the coaches non-stop, picking up (things) from lectures from every angle. I was always asking questions.”
Keith recalls always playing against the UNH players when he was in high school, including Alosa and Scott Drapeau when they showed up in the mid 1990s. “They’d call or message with a time and we’d be there,” he said.
That was a good challenge when he was younger playing against athletes who were bigger and stronger. “So how are you going to be able to stay on the floor to impact the game?” he asked himself. “So you start problem solving at a young age. I better box this guy out or I’ll have a grown man yelling at me. We have to win this game to stay on the floor.”
But that was a great way to get better. Alosa, Friel and Lee all played against older players, which is humbling but helpful in the long run.
Dave Burrows had two older brothers growing up in Milton. Steve and Scott were stars at Nute. Steve started on the school’s first hoop championship team in 1980 and went on to score 1,000 points, as did Scott, a 1986 Nute grad. “They let me play pickup with them,” Dave said. “My brother Steve would take me over to Farmington and we’d play pickup with the Muchers. That’s how I started understanding the game as far as keeping your mouth shut and playing and having fun.”
The pickup game toughened Burrows up, playing against bigger and older players. “That’s how you really learn,” he said. “I always tell players, 3 on 3 is the best way to learn basketball. You’re moving, you’re understanding how to pick, spacing.”
As he got older, he was always in search of a good game of pickup. “In Milton, I would literally go to the church,” Burrows said. “If there wasn’t a pickup game, I’d go to Rochester. If the pickup was bad there, we’d go to York (Maine) and play King of the Court. I could drive around Farmington, Rochester and see players shooting outside. You don’t see that today. No 3 on 3. No 4 on 4. No King of the Court. That’s how you learn.”
While Burrows had his brothers to push him, Keith Friel had his brother Greg, who was a year younger. “He was as hard a worker as I’ve ever seen,” Keith said. “I’d wake up in the summer and love to see that he was already dribbling and shooting and getting some drills in. I wanted to be the first one up.”
Tim Lee’s older brother, Josh, was essential in Tim being able to come into high school and have an impact. Josh Lee and Shaun Lover were talented, savvy senior guards, whose presence made it easier for him to play. “They helped a ton,” he said. “Especially with the attention that they drew. That allowed me to spot up and shoot. I didn’t have that luxury the last three years.”
Lee scored 33 points in his first varsity game, which gave him confidence going forward.
Burrows had those good Burrows genes when he was younger, which allowed him to play varsity in eighth grade. He grew six inches in seventh grade, so he was a skinny, but coordinated, 6-foot-3 in eighth grade. However, he could score from the get-go, regularly dropping 20 or more points. Coach Phil Mollica defined roles in the preseason, and Burrows’ role was to score. Everyone understood that. “Egos were checked at the door,” Burrows said.
Alosa recalls as a freshman beating out a senior who had started for two years. “I had to earn that spot, but it was a no-brainer,” he said as he went on to score over 400 points as a frosh. “It takes a courageous coach to say I’m going to play this kid over a senior. A lot of coaches are just against it. No matter how much better a kid is.”
Another factor, beyond being physically mature enough to play and score as a freshman or an eighth-grader, is that you have to remain healthy for four or five years.
Also, the 3-point shot, which was adopted at the high school level before the 1987-88 season, has helped. Friel and Lee certainly benefited from that shot, and might not have reached the 2,000-point club without it. It helped others as well.
It should be noted that Donlon, who went on to set 3-point shooting records at UNH, played in the era just before the 3-pointer came to high school. She scored 2,502 points without the three. Had she had it, then one can speculate that she would have passed Wood and challenged Burrows..
Donlon and Burrows are the only 2,000-point scorers from the same school to play at the same time at some point. Donlon graduated in 1987, so Burrows got to see her game during his first two years on the Nute boys’ varsity team.
“I loved her game,” Burrows said. “I learned a lot from Julie. She was very generous with her court. She was willing to help. Her ball handling was top notch. Passing and ball handling, she had it all. She was really good. She’s the best basketball player to come out of Nute, in my opinion.”
One point that is made by some of these prolific scorers is that getting to 2,000 wasn’t something they necessarily aspired to.
“It was never on my mind,” Lee said. “I was just trying to be a good teammate; trying to win a state championship and putting a banner on the wall. That seemed to be more significant growing up in that program.”
The same for Friel. “I think I was ultra-competitive,” he said. “That led to not just scoring points, I wanted to win. … The priority growing up as a coach’s son was never the amount of points. It was always ‘who won the game?’”
He added, “My end goal was never who had the most points. Obviously, I loved scoring. I still do to this day. I love shooting and hearing that net snap. That doesn’t change – the satisfaction of that.”
If you look at the 2,000-point club list, of the 16 players on it, 10 experienced at least one state championship, and five were on multiple title squads. “It was always what can we do to win the game,” said Friel, who played on back-to-back Class I championship teams at Oyster River (1995 and 1996).
Another important piece to consider is the evolution of AAU ball. When many of these 2,000-point players were in the game, AAU was in its infancy. In fact, there was just one team for a while for boys and girls, and the best players played on those teams. That’s not like today where there are multiple teams, and you do not see the state’s best together on one team. In some cases, the better players are competing with elite teams from out of state.
Case and point was an AAU team that Alosa, Burrows, Gatchell and Drapeau played on in the early 1990s and late 1980s coached by Frank Alosa.
Alosa recalls at age 13 going to a tryout for the AAU team at Dover High School. All three courts were in use with kids all trying out for the one team.
“That’s what it was,” Alosa said. “We had a group of 12 or 13 guys that went to the nationals and finished sixth out of 100-plus teams at Disneyland.”
Similarly in the late 1990s, Frank Alosa coached an elite N.H. AAU team with Bonner, Lee, and Steve Lavolpicelo from the 2,000-point club, as well as some other big names like Billy Collins, Marshall Chrane and Mark Yeaton. “That team was loaded with Division I and 2 talent,” Lee said. “We finished in the top-eight in the country in Florida.”
Players of that era did not go to prep school at the rate they do these days. Burrows said he has a chance to play with Alosa at Pembroke Academy after his sophomore year. “I just made the decision I was happy in Milton,” he said, which worked out as he led Nute to the 1990 state title in Class S. “To be totally honest, I figured if I transferred, I’d lose my girlfriend.” Burrows has been married to his “girlfriend” (Lisa Dube) for 26 years.
After his sophomore year, Alosa came close to going to DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, a prominent national basketball power. “I started getting a lot of attention,” Alosa said. “I went to the nationals my sophomore year. I played really, really well. The letters started pouring in. We decided I didn’t have to go.”
Bascom contemplated going to a bigger school midway through her Epping career. She was courted by Class L schools in Exeter and Dover (where her dad played), but in the end decided to stay true to her hometown.
Friel had an offer to attend Phillips Exeter Academy on scholarship after eighth grade, but his mom said no to that, not wanting her son away from home at a young age.
Looking back, Friel wonders if maybe he should have gone to prep school for his senior season. “I wasn’t challenged very much from a competitive standpoint,” he said. Although Oyster River defended its championship, Friel recalls many, many blowouts in which he was lucky to play half the game. He felt it stunted his development to some degree. But it still felt good to stay and help Oyster River win another title. Winning, in Friel’s mind, has always been the end goal – not the points.
2,000-POINT CLUB WEIGHS IN ON THE GAME TODAY
Alosa, Burrows, Friel and Lee have their own opinions on why it is harder today to get to 2,000 points.
Here are some of the factors: Kids play less pickup and more AAU. Some of the better players opt for prep school. The game is slower. Kids lack fundamentals. Social media.
“When I played, players were playing,” Burrows said. “What I’m watching today is too structured. You go to a team. You travel around to tournaments.”
“There’s a significant decline in recreational pickup,” Lee said.
“I just don’t see (pickup) anymore,” said Alosa, who coached at his alma mater for 10 years, winning two state championships. “It’s a skilled event. It’s a motor skill that you have to do over and over again. You have to log the hours. If I play seven hours and you play one, I’m going to be better than you in a year.”
He added, “The organization for good or bad is that kids don’t do anything unless their parents bring them to practice for an hour and a half a couple of nights a week. That’s basketball.”
“It has to be organized,” said Friel, who runs Friel Basketball, offering team and individual instruction. “You’re playing in your grade and age group. You’re playing so many games year round. They’re playing all these games. When are they working on their skills? You have four or five games and maybe one or two practices. When are you working on your weaknesses?”
He thinks kids are not taught much about fundamentals. “Everybody has a team,” Friel said. “There’s a lot of dads coaching at a young age.”
Burrows agrees. “I think a lot of the skills just aren’t there,” he said.
In the 2,000-point era, it was more likely that the best players would play together on one AAU team. Not so today. With so many teams, the talent is spread out, or even gone to play out of state with elite regional teams.
Top players are also more likely to go to prep school today. It’s not uncommon to see good players competing one, two or three years of high school and then going prep, often reclassifying.
Social media may have also played a role as a distraction. Lee said you have young kids before they get to high school, ages 12, 13 or 14, have more pressure to look good for the highlight clip. “Technology becomes a distraction,” he said. “Video games. Cell phones.”
The pace of the game has changed. Games are slower and the scores are lower. As an example, if you added the four 2021 boys championship games together you get a total of 313 points. It is the lowest combined point total for the four championship games since the NHIAA went to four divisions for the 1963-64 season. One team scored more than 50 points, while four scored 40 or more and three scored in the 30s. The overall average was 39 points.
“A lot of coaches like to control the environment more,” Alosa said. “I think some of that has to do with the level of confidence in talent.”
“But with no shot clock and lack of fundamentals coaches think ‘I’ll take my chances. We don’t have as much talent right now. Let’s work the ball,’” Friel said. “You’re seeing these possessions of a minute and a half. I don’t fault the coaches. They’re trying to win. But 4-2, 8-4 quarters. That’s ridiculous. How much fun is that?”
In his era, Lee said the 2,000-point scorers and their peers managed the game clock. “There was little time between possessions,” he said. “The ball was being taken out at a quicker rate. The players had a greater understanding of how to move the ball faster up the court. There’s more dribbling today. It’s more a perimeter, spread-out offense.”
The consensus, of course, is that a shot clock could help remedy the pace of the game. It’s a debate that continues to rage across the state. The financial piece remains a major stumbling block for schools. Whether its implementation would translate into getting some more 2,000-point scorers to surface is anyone’s guess. It couldn’t hurt.
In recent years there have been some close calls. Luke Merrill (story on him next week) scored 1,975 points for Pittsburg, the state’s northernmost school, where he played five years from 2003 to 2008. Keith Brown, a 2016 Pelham HS grad, filled it up to the tune of 1,978 points, leading the Pythons to back-to-back D-III titles. Essentially, one more game would likely have gotten either player over that milestone hump. Almost.
Getting there, however, remains elusive.
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Countdown to the New Year with our Top 5 Plays from the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash…
FARMINGTON – It’s 31 games down and two to go at the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash. Day four of the five-day event took place on Wednesday with one girls consolation game, the Skills Competition and 3-Point Contest and two boys semifinals.
DAY 4: PHOTOS | ON-DEMAND VIDEO
The night cap between Concord Christian Academy and Coe-Brown Northwood Academy stole the show as the Kingsmen defeated the Bears in dramatic fashion to advance to today’s final at 7:00 pm. CCA will take on Kennett as they advanced with a convincing win over Portsmouth Christian Academy in the day’s first semi.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30: CHAMPIONSHIP DAY
GIRLS: Coe-Brown vs. Kennett, 5:30 PM
BOYS: Concord Christian Academy vs. Kennett, 7:00 PM
BOYS:
Kennett 59, Portsmouth Christian 31
K: Grady Livingston 23 points
PCA: Jason Stockbower 10 points
Concord Christian 55, Coe-Brown 53
CCA: Isaac Jarvis 27 points, Brode Frink 20 points
CBNA: Jack Lano 17, Nate Ford 14, Brady Kouchhoukos 14
GIRLS:
Littleton 44, Farmington 31
L: Lauren McKee 22 points
FHS: Madi Ricker 10 points
SKILLS COMPETITION
Littleton’s Kaylee Manzella (SR/G) & Holy Family’s Gabe Lacasse (SO/G) took home the titles for the New England Furniture Skills Competition at the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash on Wednesday afternoon.
3-POINT CONTEST
Epping’s Owen Finkelstein (SR/G) and Littleton’s Lauren McKee (SR/G) were crowned NorthEast Arbor Tec 3-Point Champions at the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash on Wednesday afternoon
ALL-TOURNEY
Holy Family’s Karl Yonkeu (SR/F) and Littleton’s Lauren McKee SR/G) were named to the All-Tournament Team at the 42nd Annual Mike Lee Holiday Basketball Bash.
