Winnacunnet Girls Hoops Watch

Is it time we start talking about the Winny girls as one of the greats high school girls hoops teams in NH's storied history? They just went down to Orlando, FL and one the KSA Holiday Basketball Tournament against some stiff national competition. Their closest game was the final, which they won 69-52 over Spring Ford High School (PA).

Warriors claim Fla. tourney title

Probably the best thing about this team is they play together, and share the ball. You don't see BC committed Tiffany Ruffin going off for 25 or 30 a night. She is right in the middle of the scoring pack for Winny averaging 14-16 pts a game.

Now that "Tiffany & Co." have traveled, bonded and won, no destroyed, the competition in Florida, is there any doubt they will run the table in NH (I think this questions has been answered already), and is it too early in the season for us to start talking about some of the greatest girls teams in the past 10, 20 or 30 years in New Hampshire? I've only been around 10 or so here, so fill me in...

Not sure what season it was but Nashua had a girls team that had a couple year run where they were a top 25 team in the nation. Anyone got more details on this team?

I found this article that is discussing a 100-0 win in which they talk about Nashua being ranked number 1 in the nation in 87/88.

Post Deleted

That comment is really not what the forum is about. You want to disagree with the coach and decisions, ok, but you better back it up and do it tastefully.

***Edited by The Assistant***

ChiKid - those Nashua teams back in the late 80s were as dominant as the current edition of the Winny girls. Fagula coached Nashua teams were THE TEAM in NH back then. How about this stat: 4 different Nashua High players won the POY in 4 years:

Missy Ayotte 1988-89 Girls Basketball Guard Nashua NH
Becky Shrigley 1987-88 Girls Basketball Fwd Nashua NH
Celeste Lavoie 1986-87 Girls Basketball Center Nashua NH
Kerry Welch 1985-86 Girls Basketball Nashua NH

Becky Shrigley was Rich shrigley's sister. Rich Shrigley is one of the 10 best HS basketball players ever to come out of NH. He had an outstanding career at BC. He almost helped them go to a couple of Final Fours.

But the size of winny and nashua are quite different.
I think Nashua was 3-4,000 students back then, compared to 1200-1300 at winny.
I am not taking anything away from Nashua, but what the winny girls have done is pretty remarkable.

Winny's run over the last couple of years is outstanding. Their second five could probably be the 2nd best team in Class L girls. Enrollment doesn't always mean success. The Pinkerton boy's team fans can attest to this.

Winnacunnet is ranked #17 in the East in the most recent ESPN RISE poll. They are up from 18 last week. No national ranking yet, but it could happen by the end of the year.

ESPN RISE Week 3 Regional Rankings

Check out this article on them on my new website:

http://mass-nh-highschoolbasketballreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/winnacunnet-girls-continue-to-roll_08.html

So Winnacunnet only wins 53-47 at Pinkerton tonight...anybody go to this game. Somebody find a link to the news article tomorrow so I can see what the heck happened here!

The Assistant wrote:So Winnacunnet only wins 53-47 at Pinkerton tonight...anybody go to this game. Somebody find a link to the news article tomorrow so I can see what the heck happened here!

I wasn't there, but one of my correspondents with the Mass & NH High School Basketball Report was. Check out the story here: http://mass-nh-highschoolbasketballreport.blogspot.com/2010/01/winnacunnet-girls-survive-pinkerton.html

At this point, Winnacunnet and Pinkerton are the top two teams in girls Class L. Central and Londonderry are a notch behind. Then there seems to be a fall off to about 8 teams that could beat each other on any given night.

Winnacunnet is up to #14 in the East. They've still got a ways to go till they reach National ranking status, but it's still early in the year and they've been climbing in these standings every week.

ESPN Rise East Girls High School Basketball Rankings

Being #14 in the East should put them somewhere around the top 75 in the country. ESPN Rise also does a national poll of the top 50 teams, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them hit that (if they continue to go undefeated) somewhere in the next 5-7 weeks. These rankings are typically dominated by Private institutions however, so for Winny to get the pub they deserve they'll need to win out and do it in convincing fashion.

NH Ram Fan, you are right on the mark with your observation of Girl's L so far. I would love to see a tape of the 2nd half of the Winny-Pinkerton girl's game to see how Winny let a 29 - 10 half time lead dissolve and make for an interesting game. The UL article had zero details of the game and was more of a celebration of the Pinkerton season so far. I was anxious to see the details about how Pinkerton made the comeback from a 19 point deficit. The only thing I read about the second half was on the NH B-ball Report site that said it wasn't Winny's best performance and they seemed complacent in the 2nd half playing a lazy zone.

Those 8 or so teams you talk about being able to beat each other on a given night is so true. The scores have been very low so far also. Trinity 45 - 41, Alvrine 40 - 37, Keene 48 - 36 and Spaulding 44 - 41. These are winning scores from last Tuesday and all the teams involved, winners and losers, are in that 3rd tier bunch. When you have teams that have parity and offense is hard to come by, then it's almost a pick em game every time 2 of those 3rd tier teams match up.

BG has been a pleasant surprise coming off their tough season from last year. Even though their schedule hasn't been the toughest so far, with all 5 wins coming against teams with a .500 record or worse, they are gaining confidence which will serve them well when playing the upper echelon teams. BG is really focusing on next year as they have a young team this year. Memorial is an intriguing team. When their starters are scoring they can play with anyone outside of Pinky and Winny.

Winny edges up to #12 (from #14) in the East this week in ESPN Rise's regional rankings.

ESPN Rise East Region Girls Hoop Rankings

Still not getting national attention in their overall top 50.

The Warriors held steady at #12 this week...no change in the standings.

With no real tests ahead of them, it will be hard to gain additional regional notice. Their plight is similar to the non-BCS teams trying to get into a meaningful national championship game... they can/will beat everyone up along the way, but will have to settle for being the biggest fish in our small pond.

Very true...however I don't think you can ignore an undefeated team forever. Not that they're ignoring them, but they'll need to give them some more love one of these days.

I guess I would compare them to the UVM women's team in the late 90's that went 32-0 or something in the regular season and were ranked 25th in the nation, before bowing out in the first round of the NCAA tourney to Rutgers. They got love, but probably the amount they deserved.

Exete/winny girls game, winny by 42, could have scored 100 points if they wanted to.
game was tied at 12 late 1st qtr, winny up by 20 or more at half, dominated third and no starter played in 4th.

Winny explodes up the rankings to #11 this week (from #12). With metro areas like Philly, Baltimore, NY, Boston, Providence, Hartford, etc. on this list I have slim hope that they'll breach the top 5 or even 10 by seasons end.

The #8 team in the East rankings (Christ the King of Middle Village, NY) sits at #50 in the "Fab 50" national rankings by ESPN RISE. So looks like they need to gain 3 or 4 spots in the regional rankings to even be considered, and even then its no shoe-in. They just don't play the competition I don't think to validate it.

Here's to hoping!

Tiffany Ruffin had ice water in veins last night as she stuck the game winning jumper at the buzzer at the end of OT. I was very proud of my CHS girls tonight. They played with passion and intensity agains't a fantastic Winnacunnet team. Despite what NHRamFan may believe the Warriors still had a test (or two) to pass before being ranked nationally. Maybe the tournament will be fairly interesting after all.

Winny breaks the top 10 in the East moving up to #10 from #11.

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/basketball/girls/news/story?id=4914855

Still no national ranking.

Guess what....

#50 in the nation, congrats Warriorettes!!!

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/fab50?sportId=10020020&seasonType=1&season=2009&week=10

Steady at #8 in the East this week too...

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/basketball/girls/news/story?id=4943588

I really felt they would run the table and possibly be here by years end. Nice job by the girls getting some national respect.

I'm not sure if some of these schools have already had their tournaments, but look at the amount of games they play! 330-35 games for many of them. Now that also may be a result of having a bigger tournament, so more games, but I think it helps a team to go 30-0 get a better record. I also had a feeling Winny would be here just by the sheer numbers of being undefeated. It'd be interesting to see them play some top 50 talent.

We need a national tournament! Would be fun to see the top team from every state play in a 50 team tournament. Talk about getting some stories out of it.