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# Bedford boys basketball gets first D1 win in rout of Merrimack
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/bedford-boys-basketball-gets-first-d1-win-in-rout-of-merrimack/
- Published: 2012-12-21T07:41:53.000Z
- Updated: 2012-12-21T07:41:53.000Z
- Description: MERRIMACK ­- The Merrimack High School boys basketball team honored the players who won the 2012 Division I championship before Thursday's game against Bedford.
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division II, Winter Sports, Bedford, boys basketball, Division I, Merrimack, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

![Bedford's Ryan Brown pulls a rebound away from Merrimack's Austin Franzen and Connor Whalen during Thursday's game. For more photos, go to the Photo Album.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jmbhsbball122012-brown1.jpg)

Bedford's Ryan Brown pulls a rebound away from Merrimack's Austin Franzen and Connor Whalen during Thursday's game. For more photos, go to the Photo Album.

MERRIMACK ­- The Merrimack High School boys basketball team honored the players who won the 2012 Division I championship before Thursday's game against Bedford.

Unfortunately, most of those players were dressed in street clothes, back at the high school while on break.

Bedford went on runs of 13-1 and 10-0 in the second quarter to take control of the game, and pulled out a 62-42 win over Merrimack. The win was the first for the Bulldogs (1-1) in Division I, while the Tomahawks (2-1) suffered their first loss of the season.

"Its huge for us," Bedford junior Taylor Grande said. "We knew that they won the championship last year, and we knew that they were going to come out fighting. We needed to prove a point, that we're D-I now and we're not going to get run over every game."

![Merrimack's Brad Jarry goes up for a layup against Bedford's Cameron Meservey.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jmmerrbball122012-jarry2.jpg)

Merrimack's Brad Jarry goes up for a layup against Bedford's Cameron Meservey.

Grande did his best, shutting out a vocal Merrimack student section to score a game-high 25 points, including four 3-pointers. Three of those came in the third quarter, when Grande scored 11 of his points.

"We'll see if we can do something with (Grande) and slow him down," Merrimack coach Tim Goodridge said of the teams' next meeting, which is scheduled to come in the Queen City Invitational Tournament on Wednesday. "We'll find out who on this team wants to be a part of it and play on the defensive end. If we don't want to play in the defensive end, we're going to have a long season."

Merrimack got 18 points from Eric Gendron, but 10 of those came in the first quarter and only three came after halftime. The 'Hawks lead 15-9 at the end of the first quarter, but Merrimack turned the ball over on three of its first four possessions of the second, and had 12 for the game.

"Gendron was lighting us up early," Bedford coach Mike Fitzpatrick said. "We had to try to make him pass the ball or do something different. He's one of the best players in the state. Jake Capistran did a good job on him.

"After the first quarter, we were tough defensively. We were smarter and tougher."

Bedford took advantage of Merrimack's turnovers early in the second, turning them into points to tie the game at 15 under a minute into the frame. Brad Jarry hit a free throw for the 'Hawks, but the Bulldogs scored the next nine points to lead 24-16.

Gendron hit a jumper and a 3 to get Merrimack back to within three points, and trailed 26-22 with 2:25\. But then the Bulldogs took over, going on a 10-0 run to close out the first half.

"It starts with us being aggressive on defense and playing our heart out every game," Grande said. "We just kept fighting. We've been down before, so we know how to suck it up and not quit."

![Bedford's Taylor Grande and Merrimack's Mickey Gasper look at the ball after Grande was fouled by Gasper.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/jmbhsbball122012-grande1.jpg)

Bedford's Taylor Grande and Merrimack's Mickey Gasper look at the ball after Grande was fouled by Gasper.

Merrimack closed the gap to nine points three minutes into the third quarter, but Bedford responded with another run, this time an 18-3 stretch that included eight points from Grande and a 3 by Ryan Brown.

For Fitzpatrick, it was good to see his team rebound from an 89-74 loss to Bishop Guertin to open the season.

"It's a good win because they responded well in practice, knowing we didn't play very well against BG," he said. "Not to take anything away from BG, but we didn't play our best. They worked hard, at least for three quarters it translated. There were quite a few things to improve on and we hit on them."

Goodridge hopes that the team's first loss will show an inexperienced group what it needs to do to be successful.

"I don't think we communicated well and if you play good defense, hopefully that will lead to bet offense," he said. "On offense, we were just standing around, not executing. It comes down to, in my opinion, a lack of experience. None of these kids have had a real lot of varsity experience. Hopefully, we can continue to improve and be better at the end of the season."

The teams will play again on Wednesday in the Queen City Tournament at 4:30 p.m. at Manchester Memorial.