D1 Girl's Semis and Finals

First let me say I am getting used to calling all the Divisions by their name like 1, 2, 3 etc, but I do miss calling them L, I, M etc.

When you look on the new Forum topics you have to concentrate on which division you are looking for. In the old days.....

.....Like last year, you could easily decipher which division to look for when looking at Class L, Class I, etc.

Girl's Semi Finals:

#2 Londonderry vs. #6 Alvrine - OK, do you think this is a good day to be attending Alvrine High School? Every one is very happy in Bronco Land. The boy's team supporters are walking on Cloud 9 after their heart stopping victory over Merrimack last night. The girl's team supporters are on the same cloud after they beat rival Pinkerton last Saturday. Now, the Lady Broncos have to come down from their cloud and onto the SNHU court to face the tough and physical John Fagula Londonderry team. Alvrine faces 2 problems in this game. One is the fact they are not deep. Two is they are not big. Londonderry is big and deep. Not a good matchup for the Broncos. The Alvrine bigs, which aren't too big will have their hands full against Cloutier and Butterfield. Deanna Purcell will have to play the game of her life for Alvrine to pull the upset.

#1 Winny vs. #4 Memorial - Jack Quirk has been known to do some "Quirky" things to get his team ready for big games. The symmetry just seems too much for the following scenario:

He takes his team to the SNHU court this afternoon and has Allie (Ollie) Hartford get up on Amra Elezovic's shoulders and have them meausure one of the SNHU baskets to show them it's 10 feet there also.

OK, enough with Hoosiers. Memorial has to survive the first quarter. In the regular season game the first 6 Memorial possessions resulted in turnovers. Winny scored on their first 6 possessions. Game over. The Memorial girls will come on the SNHU court with the big crowd and say, "Wow, this is unbelievable. It is so big !!" The Winny girls will come on the SNHU court, yawn and say, "Ahh, not much has changed with this place." Survive the first quarter. If Memorial can survive the initial onslaught of the ambience of the evening, the Winny pressure and the moment of a big semi final game along with Gendron and Elezovic coming up big then it could be interesting. If not........

Memorial has to play a near perfect game to beat Winny...... Correction....they have to play a perfect game.

Hate to say it, but I think we're looking at two lopsided games tonight. Alvirne has certainly fared well under first year coach Tracy, but Londonderry has depth, size, speed, scoring and experience. As for the other game, Coach Q will try to slow things down, but Winnacunnet has a way of getting its opponents to run along - Gendron and Elezovic won't be enough against Winny's six cylinder engine.

Saturday night will be a different story. 9 point differential in the regular season. Londonderry has been peaking. Look for the upset in the match up of coaching masters.....

Londonderry up 1 at half over Alvirne. Not at the game but getting score updates. 24-23

Alvirne up three going into the 4th quarter. Alvirne 33 Londonderry 30

6 minutes left, 37-34 Alvirne

2 minutes to play - All tied up at 44 Alvirne/Londonderry Girl DI Semi

Just got word Purcell fouled out. Wow thats huge

49 47 Londonderry 30 seconds left

Not looking good for the Broncos - nice season though, congrats to making to the final 4. 51-47 18 seconds left

Final 53 47 Congrats on a great season. And hats off to Londonderry they are a great team. I have to say Purcell and Donovan have had great careers. They should both excel at the next level.

Londonderry 53 Alvrine 47

Alvrine 12 11 10 14 - 47
Lond 15 9 6 23 - 53

Alvrine - Desfosses 14 Carbone 12 Donovan 10 D. Purcell 5 S. Purcell 4 Treachis 2

Lond - Butterfield 17 Moloney 8 Crutcher 8 Simpson 7 Bolduc 7 Uphold 4 Johnson 2

Winny 44 Memorial 34

Mem - 6 8 12 8 - 34
Winn - 13 10 13 5 - 44

Memorial - Elezovic 16 Sopel 8 Gendron 5 Hartford 3 Leonard 2

Winny - Corcoran 18 O'Neil 12 Morrison 9 Gould 3 Sullivan 2

I would like to give a lot of credit to the Lady Broncos. They almost pulled off the big upset of Londonderry tonight. They played their game of the season. They did this with Deanna Purcell having a very quiet game with 5 points. Katie Donovan came up huge tonight. He 10 points, 7 rebounds and 1 block don't begin to tell the story about how she battled Butterfield, Crutcher and Cloutier in the paint. If Alvrine had pulled off this huge upset Donovan would've been the player of the game. Taylor Carbone had a big game for the Broncos also. Kudos to Deanna Purcell for an outstanding career.

In the Memorial - Winnacunnet game Sam Corcoran was impressive through out the whole game. She did it all in leading the Warriors tonight. She certainly confirmed my thought she should win the POY for D1 girls. Amra Elezovic had a great effort in defeat. She is certainly one to watch for potential POY for next season.

The Londonderry - Winnacunnet championship matchup is certainly going to be a good one. If I had to do the Tulliver Percentage Pick on this one right now I would say Winny 60% to Londonderry 40%.

Hats off to coach Tracy and the Lady Broncos. Excellent game plan, but Londonderry had just a little too much. I agree with the 60/40 assessment for Saturday's game, though Londonderry has what it takes to win it all. After a long season these are the right two teams to be playing for the the plaque!

Winnacunnet wins their 5th consecutive title by beating Londonderry 55 to 46.

Lond - 7 22 11 6 - 46

Winny - 11 19 11 14 - 55


Lond - Crutcher 12 Butterfield 10 Johnson 9 Bolduc 6 Uphold 5 Moloney 2

Winny - O'Neil 17 Morrison 12 Gould 12 Corcoran 8 Sullivan 2 DiPietro 2


O'Neil had a great game scoring and controlling the ball against Londonderry's press. Corcoran and Butterfield had good first halves, but both players seemed to tire in the 2nd half and negated each other. The player that really helped win this game for Winny was 5'11 sophomore Carly Gould. She had some big baskets and rebounds in the 2nd half when the game was still in doubt. Morrison was deadly from the outside with 4 three's. Crutcher came up big for Londonderry. These teams hit each other hard for the majority of the game. The 2nd period was a great 8 minutes of basketball as Londonderry outscored Winny 22 - 19. There was up and down action end to end for both teams. It was a great competitive period for both teams. In the end Winny just had too much balanced scoring for the Lancers. The Warriors took the Lancers best shot and survived to win their 5th straight title.

Is it too early for a pre season top 5 for next season?

1) Winnacunnet - They return 4 starters. Gould will be good and Morrison will be one of the best shooters in the state. O'Neil might be the best point guard in D1 girl's next year. This dynasty just keeps rolling.

2) BG - With Green, Gibbs, Hayner and some good freshman returning it could be a break through season for BG.

3) Londonderry - They lose a lot from this year's team, but they had 3 good freshman and the dynamite JV team.

4) Memorial - Elezovic, Hartford, Fletcher and Dimou form a nice returning nucleus.

5) Alvrine - Carbone, Desfosses and the freshman Purcell are returning which makes another final four appearance next year a possibility.

T & F - you're right on. Winny looked very good tonight, and the four underclassmen carried the day. No streak goes on forever, but just when will this one end?
Guertin has the three you mentioned plus return starting Frosh PG Jamie Sherburne and have a good incoming class. Londonderry will reload - their strength is in the freshman class - in addition to Simpson they have King, Holland and Caron waiting to step in...rumor has it the incoming freshman class is as good or better than the current one! Memorial and Alvirne both return solid, solid players - and never count out the Wizard of Derry, when it comes to putting together a good team!

NHRamfan, I saw the Londonderry 8th graders about 3 times this season. They seemed stocked at the 3, 4 and 5 position. They had a big who was the best girl Jr High player I saw this season. I don't know her name, but she might be able to zoom up the Lancer chart real quick. Most of the 8th graders were high pressure very physical players. I can see Londonderry having one of the best, if not the best JV team in girl's D1 next season.

In addition to Green and Shelburne, BG has some very good transfers coming in, as well as a talented freshman from Nashua Catholic, that will make BG a very strong contender for the state crown the next two years.

How do you know they have talented transfers coming in already?