Championship Sunday ar Rivier Fall League

A long morning into afternoon at Rivier today for the playoffs:

Quarterfinals:
Trinity defeated Salem (wasn't at this game).

Merrimack beat Dover by 3 (wasn't at this game).

Memorial defeated South 63 - 47. Vinnie Zenni had an impressive game for Memorial. Jake Nelson had a frustrating game. Cortez didn't play and there's rumblings his future is questionable for the Panthers. C. Fitz in sweats coaching the Crusaders for the day.

BG beat North 42 - 37. This was an intense rivalry regular season like game. BG had a quick 8-0 start which slowly eroded as the back court combo of Gauthier and Williams made some defensive and offensive plays that BG's back court had a tough time matching. Green shot the ball well. BG started off the second half with full court pressure that forced the Titans into some turnovers. In the end, a lack of inside presence for North combined with the Williams/Gauthier combo trying to do too much on the court spelled victory for BG.

Semi-Finals:

Merrimack 41 Memorial 38
Memorial had Merrimack on their heels for the first half as they took a 22-19 lead into the break. Memorial maintained a 4 to 8 point lead the majority of the second half, but started mentally imploding with about 8 minutes to go in the game. Silly fouls away from the ball and a big foul on Maser taking a 3 with about 3 minutes to go proved fatal for Memorial. Maser canned all three FTs to cut a 5 point deficit to 2. On the next offensive possession for Merrimack D. Floras had a nice And 1 drive which gave Merrimack their first lead of the second half. Memorial didn't have any answers and the Tomos advanced to the Championship game. Matt Hardwick had a very good game at point defending, dishing and scoring. Eric Watson had a strange first half as he picked up a technical and was involved in a double foul. He hardly had any minutes in the first half.

Trinity 45 BG 26
Trinity had a quick start as they took it to BG and had a quick 16 - 4 lead with nice shooting by Kesty, stong ball handling and drives by Gordon Duffley and a defense which forced BG into turnovers. BG made a comeback and cut Trinity's lead to about 4 at halftime. St. Lawrence and Green were instumental in turning things around for the Cardinals. Trinity had another quick start in the 2nd half and pushed the lead to 10 plus. Trinity maintained this lead late into the second half increasing it to 14 to 16 points. BG threw up the white flag with 4 minutes to go and Trinity cruised to the 19 point victory. Hayden had a fine floor game and he was complimented by solid performances by Kesty and Duffley. Trinity sent a message to BG in this game saying, "Just a friendly reminder, we are defending state champs."

Championship Game:

Merrimack 56 Trinity 46

Not too many people would've given Merrimack a chance to run the table today, but they did in an impressive way. Watson was scalding hot hitting five 3's in the first half. Trinity might have been a little emotionally spent after their big victory over BG. Merrimack took advantage of this and took a 28 - 19 lead at the break. Merrimack had a nice team effort in the 2nd half as Watson, Masur, both Floras' and Hardwick lead a balanced Tomo attack. Trinity seemed to be searching for offense the majority of the second half and they never really found it. Merrimack won the Championship because they had balanced team scoring, good ball security and for a smaller lineup didn't give away too much of an edge on the glass.

Notes and musings:

- Even though Watson shot the ball well and scored a lot, my MVP goes Merry point guard Matt Hardwick. He did everything you'd want a point guard to do. He took care of the ball, dished nicely to mates, defended Hayden well and scored points. When the Tomo offense goes through Hardwick good things happen.

- Trinity and BG had stretches where their offenses were lost. In Trinity's case I think it comes down to who will do what at any given time. They have to sort out their 8 man rotation and figure out who the go to guys are going to be. In BG's case I would have to point to their point guard by commitee. I don't know who will have the key to the Cardinal basketball ignition this year, but there were many stretches where their offense floundered. Sending 5 in and 5 out might not be such a good thing after all. It's great for defensive pressure, but their offense seems to suffer with the liberal substituting.

- Gauthier and Williams will be one of the best back courts in the state this year. That's the good news. The bad news is that the sophomore combo plays like... well... like sophomores sometimes. For a 2 to 3 minute stretch they get after it on D, make great passes and finish with some jene se quois. For some 1 to 2 minute stretches they dribble way too much into pressure, put up some questionable shots and make some bad mental mistakes. In the end this guard combo will be fun to watch and paired with Pratt and Rosenberg they will be tough in Class L.

- If Eric Watson continues to hang 15 to 30 feet from the hoop and shoot nicely this upcoming season he could make honorable mention or even sneak into 3rd team. If Eric Watson raises his game and makes a commitment to scoring more in the paint and dribble driving to create defensive fouls he could make 2nd team and possibly sneak into the first team all state.

- Not feeling fuzzy about Scurry being a member of the Memorial basketball team this season.

- D. Floras had an impressive And 1 drive from mid court to put the game away for Merry vs. Trinity late in the 4th quarter. The first one to pat him on the back? His senior brother Anthony.

- You heard it here first. Jeremy Lev. said that Merrimack could be the Memorial for this upcoming season. Last season Memorial went from a 5 win team 2 years ago to the state final game the next season. Merrimack won 4 games last year. Could they get to the state final this year? Lot of water that needs to run under the Class L bridge, but there is a good possibility that Merrimack will win more games this season than they did the last 2 seasons combined.

- Merrimack fan was heard saying after the Tomos won the championship that he'll feel a lot better when the Tomos start getting wins in the "real" season. No one needs to remind Merry fans how impressive they looked in the QCIBT last year only to fall totally flat when the new year started.

- Yes, there were a lot of travels called today along with a lot of carrying of the ball. And yes, Mr. Mitchell all the violations were justified..... at least in IABBO rules. Now for the Fiba rules, I guess you'll have to watch Mr. Mitchell blow a Fox 40 on Sunday mornings in the beautiful town of Milford.

- I felt that Class L was fairly wide open before Fall League started. Now, after watching Fall League I am certain that the Class L Championship trophy could be hoisted by as many as 7 or 8 teams this upcoming season. Tuesdays and Fridays will have a lot of hard battles with head turning surprises this coming December through March.