Class L Elite 8

Well I will give my picks before bed tonight. I am taking Pinkerton,Dover,Memorial and BG to punch their bus tickets to UNH tomorrow. Now it is bedtime!

This might be the only time this season we totally agree on anything ChiKid. I like your 4 picks, but if there is one game that could produce an upset it would be Exeter against Dover. The last regular season game saw these 2 matching up. This was a very close game until the end. There are a lot of seniors on both teams that won't want their season to end tonight. This game will go down to the wire and although Dover is the favored team it wouldn't surprise me to see Exeter in the final four. Before the playoffs started I said the final four will consist of 3 high seeds and one seed in double digits. Exeter and Londonderry are the only double digit seeds playing tonight.

The Memorial at Winny game is an interesting matchup given the regular season 45 - 29 Winny victory. Fitzpatrick injured his ankle early in this game coming down with a rebound and Memorial was never in synche offensively. Gould had an outstanding game leading Winny to the comfortable victory. Morgan wasn't at 100 percent with his ankle and lacked his usual explosiveness. This game should be very close and with both teams lacking a dominant inside game, the team that shoots better will win tonight.

Londonderry at BG should be close early, but I see BG pulling away in the second half as the Big 3 will be too much for the Lancers to deal with for 32 minutes.

My hope in the West at Pinkerton game is that both teams will join hands in prayer at mid court before the game so Valentin and Proulx can say "excuse me", "please", "sorry that I fouled you so hard" and "boy, you guys have a good team." Ya, right !!

Reposting my final 4 from the other thread...I picked Memorial to win it all in the beginning of the season, and they very well could. I'm beginning to feel like the Memorial/Winny game is a pick 'em but playing in Hampton is swaying my vote to the Warriors.


Winnacunnet - Out of the top bracket I like Winny to prevail. Tough decision as they have one of the toughest roads to get to the Final 4 having to go through either Memorial or Salem. I think Winnacunnet is the most well-rounded teams in State and they just hurt you top to bottom. They play great defense and have solid shooters to never be out of a game.

Bishop Guertin - The next bracket will likely come down to a great BG/Merrimack game in Merrimack. The home court could swing this game, but will Eric Watson play? Too many questions surrounding Merrimack, I'll take BG with their depth and ability to score from all areas of the court and on the break.

Pinkerton - Pinkerton has the easiest road in my opinion, although a first round matchup vs. Spaulding could get tricky if Spaulding is shooting the ball the way they can. Pinkerton's got the best two bigmen in the game and an improving set of guards. A second round matchup vs West or Central should be a win as both teams have been depleted by injuries or off court issues.

Dover - I like Dover to come out of the bottom bracket. North is a tough game, but if they can get by them, there's no guarantees they'll be playing Trinity in the second round. In fact, they could very easily have a home game vs. Exeter after what could be an upset in the making when they play Trinity. Exeter played the Pioneers tough for 3 quarters in the regular season, and Trinity is without Zach Stevens for the remainder of the year down with a torn ACL according to Mr. JL. Dover matches up well against Exeter and I like them to prevail on the back of Alex Burt.

I had bg,trinity,pinky,and memorial.As long as bg is still alive that's all I care about. I have bg-pinky in the finals.Interesting cardinal tidbits,Luke Lavish is playing his best ball of the season.BG is the only team left that has beaten the 3 remaining teams.15-3,14-4,14-4,and 14-4 are the records of the final 4.No cinderella crashing this party,should be an exciting final 4.

winny beats memorial by nine.
winny domintad the game for three qtrs, leading by 9-14 points most of the game.
Winny couldn't make a free throw , so the fourth went on forever!
It was a battle all night ,as gould and Fitzpatrick clutched and grabbed at each other all game.
The big upswing for winny was the defense and some great play from Shaun Munson off the bench.

Was to see all of last years bg player's in attendance.It's nice to see these players back to support their coach and team.Ollie Hunter who now plays at ST Anselm's has been to several games this year.Migs must certainly be doing something right to get this type of loyalty and devotion from former players.The most passionate coach in class L has turned BG from pretenders to contenders in 3 short years,and he is always has one eye on the future.He is building a program that is going to be similar to what TOJO has done in football.

I thought Winny/Memorial game was pretty tough to watch. The kids played hard, but it was an odd game with a lot of quick decisions and a ton of 3 point shots. I had a good time watching the game with with T&F, Dave Haley and Porstmouth coach Jim Mulvey.

Here's Dave's writeup: http://www.nhsportspage.com/display_full_story.php?story_id=388 which pretty much sums up my thoughts as well.

I just realized my Final Four is intact...one can only hope my NCAA bracket is just as successful.

Big took care of Londonderry pretty easily - here's the write up from the Nashua Telegraph:

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/sports/highschoolsports/671768-221/cards-fly-into-semis.html?i=1

Dover had to weather a late surge by a determined Exeter squad to make the semis, here's Fosters.com story:

http://fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100314/GJSPORTS_01/703149853/-1/FOSSPORTS03

If you want to relive how it sounded as all 4 quarterfinal games went down last night, check out WGAM's coverage ON DEMAND by clicking the link below...What you'll hear is the one hour pregame show, LIVE updates from correspondents who were at the games, commentary/analysis from studio hosts Chris Shuker and Sean Sendall and postgame coverage including LIVE interviews with all 4 winning coaches. Pretty good stuff if I do say so myself!

www.fnlnh.com

Tarrier my bad you were there too Saturday night at Winnacunnet! It was quite the meeting of the minds between T&F, Tarrier, Haley, Mulvey and I. There were sightings of 3-4 other coaches checking in on the action and good portion of the Trinity hoops team. Great to see all the support for NH Basketball!

It's OK Asst, I am still kinda new to this forum. I'm just hoping my unborn son who is due to arrive on Sat March 20th can wait a few more days so I can get thru a doubleheader broadcast of both the Class I and L championship games. Otherwise your colleague at NHSportspage.com, Dave Haley is getting called into action to replace me!

And that means I get to write more columns! Congrats on the new addition...I've got one on the way myself, hopefully a PF but I'll settle for SG/SF.

However I must say I planned my new addition during the offseason, you might want to think about that next time around, wife's not due till Sept...perfect timing to get me back on the hardwood by November/December...right?

Congrats as well on the new addition to the Asst family! May both our kids be All-State!