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# Above the Rim: Defense leads the way early for Bishop Guertin, Trinity girls basketball
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/13410/
- Published: 2015-12-15T13:00:31.000Z
- Updated: 2015-12-15T13:00:31.000Z
- Description: The Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team had an idea of how its games might look through the early portion of the season. Good, if not great, defense, while the offense tried to catch up. But after a quarter in Friday's opener against Trinity, neither side of the ball was what Cardinals
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Winter Sports, Above the Rim, Bishop Guertin, boys basketball, Division I, Division II, girls basketball, Lebanon, slider, Trinity, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

The Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team had an idea of how its games might look through the early portion of the season.

Good, if not great, defense, while the offense tried to catch up. But after a quarter in Friday's opener against Trinity, neither side of the ball was what Cardinals first-year coach Brad Kreick would have considered great.

Bishop Guertin trailed 15-6 at the end of one and fell behind by as many as 10 before turning things around toward the end of the second quarter. Trinity led 20-11 with 4:24 to go before halftime, but the Cardinals held a 26-15 scoring advantage the rest of the way, winning 37-35.

"It doesn’t always work the way you think it’s going to work," Kreick said. "We didn't execute real well. We didn't move the ball that great. We had to work through the kinks.

"We struggled early, but I'm proud of the kids for staying with it. We talked all preseason about how we're going to win with our defense, and once we settled down after that first quarter, we did a pretty good job defensively. If you look at the score, mid-30s for both teams, and it was really about defensive intensity."

For Trinity coach Kevin Gibbs, it was about doing something defensively that he doesn't normally like to do.

"I never want run a 2-3 zone," he said of the Pioneers' defense. "That was run exclusively to take away all the inside stuff. We wanted to take away the inside stuff and make them shoot from the outside.

"We forced them to take outside shots and they weren't hitting them. Frankly, they got back in it in the second quarter because they got some breakways and fouls on the breakaways."

Gibbs went to the zone to try to take away the Cardinals' size advantage, specifically Abbi Field, and although she finished with a game-high 14 points, through the first 15 minutes, Field had just three.

"They wanted to transition and run and we took them out of it and forced them to try to work for shots," Gibbs said. "When you run high-low and you've got that much size – and we were outsized for more of the night – you're going to sneak in for baskets."

### On the radar

It may not have been a win for the Pioneers, but Gibbs feels Friday's opener should put Trinity on the map in Division I this season.

"No one is mentioning Trinity," he said. "I think what we showed is that we belong in the discussion. They're committed to what we're asking them to do. They push and play hard."

One player who started to make a name for herself Friday was freshman Maddy Haynes, who manned the point guard position for Trinity all night and led the Pioneers in scoring with 13 points. She was also the one with the ball in her hands for Trinity's final shot.

"They were running someone at her all night and she was still finding open people," Gibbs said. "She can handle the ball a lot better than a lot of people. Nobody is talking about her and they should start talking about her."

### Great expectations

The Lebanon boys basketball team turned in one of the best showings at the Coaches For A Cause Jamboree on Saturday, knocking off Londonderry, the host and defending Division I champion.

After getting to Durham in each of the past three seasons, Raiders coach Kieth Matte didn't hesitate when asked what his team was hoping to do this season.

"Where we are as a program, we won't find any solace in a semifinal appearances or a runner-up banner," he said. "We've been there three years in a row and we want to take the next step and the kids have worked hard to take the next step. We know where we've got to get to."