Bishop Guertin girls basketball comes back to beat Bedford in D1 title game (video)

DURHAM - Things weren't looking good for the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team late in Sunday's Division I championship game.

Down five points with just under two minutes to play, it started to feel like maybe it wasn't going to happen on the Cardinals' bench. On the floor, Brooke Paquette had other plans.

The junior scored seven of her team's final nine points, including a 3-pointer with just under a minute left that gave No. 5 Bishop Guertin the lead for good, and the Cardinals came back to beat No. 2 Bedford 48-46 to win their sixth title in seven years at the University of New Hampshire's Lundholm Gym.

Paquette finished with a game-high 21 points for Bishop Guertin (19-3), going 8 of 11 at the free throw line, while also recording seven steals, four assists and four rebounds.

"Anything is possible, so we can do that, too," Paquette said of the comeback. "We were down most of the game, even if it was just by a couple of points, but coming back and winning makes it that much sweeter."

It's what Cardinals coach Brad Kreick has come to expect this year.

"The kid all year long has been at her best when we’ve played the best teams and she’s been at her best in the fourth quarter of tight games," he said. "She hit a huge 3 and knocked some free throws down at the end. She’s an unbelievable security blanket to have a kid that plays so poised when everything is chaos around her."

Olivia Murray added eight points before she fouled out with 2:31 remaining and Hannah Lynch came off the bench to chip in eight points and four rebounds. The Cardinals shot just 30 percent from the field for the game, but went 15 of 22 at the free throw line, including 13 of 16 in the fourth quarter.

Bedford (18-3) got a double double from Lana McCarthy, as the sophomore had 14 points and 14 rebounds, but she fouled out with 1:03 left to play. Emma Kasyjanski added nine points and six rebounds while Catherine Penick scored eight points and grabbed four rebounds off the bench.

"Both teams had to play close to a perfect game and both teams did play close to a perfect game," Bedford coach Kevin Gibbs said. "They’re a good squad. They do what they want to do well. I think that we have the plan, we have the weapons, and momentum swung as it sometimes does."

The momentum was going Bedford's way in the first quarter, as the Bulldogs led by as many as seven points and they had a 15-9 lead after one. Bishop Guertin tied it up at 18 midway through the second quarter, but the Cardinals went almost four minutes with scoring to end the half, and Bedford took a 21-18 lead into the break.

A three-point play by Paquette to open the third quarter tied the game at 21, but Bedford answered with six straight points, taking a 27-21 lead on a putback by McCarthy. The Cardinals responded again, going on a 6-0 run of their own to tie it at 27 before a free throw by Lyla Stein gave the Bulldogs a 28-27 at the end of the quarter.

Bishop Guertin finally went in front early in the fourth on a 3-pointer by Catelyn Wheeler and a basket by Lynch made it 33-30 with 6:51 to play.

"I burned a timeout because they were sucking us into an up-tempo (game)," Gibbs said. "They want to run us. They would gladly give up two baskets for 10 points of their own, and that’s why I called the timeout, to say ‘ladies, have faith in the plan.’ They went right back out and they did it."

Penick scored out of the timeout to give Bedford the lead back and the Bulldogs slowed the tempo, going on a 10-0 run over the next 2:28 to take a 40-33 lead. The Cardinals turned the ball over four times during that stretch and Kreick started to wonder if that was going to be it for his team's title hopes.

"I remember whispering to (assistant coach) Mike (Paquette) after we turned it over our third straight possession, I said, 'if this doesn’t go our way, we’re going to look back at those turnovers and we’ll be kicking ourselves,'" Kreick said. "It would have been really easy, down whatever we were, six or seven, with all the momentum going against us (for the Cardinals to quit). They just dug it out."

Two free throws each from Lynch and Murray cut the lead to three, but McCarthy scored to put Bedford back up 42-37. Brooke Paquette hit two free throws of her own, but moments later, Murray was called for her fifth foul.

Sydney Grogan missed the front end of the one-and-one for Bedford, but Kate Allard grabbed the rebound and scored to give the Bulldogs a 44-39 lead with 2:22 to go. But those would be the last points Bedford would score until the game was out of hand.

Paquette made one of two free throws and Molly Smith added two more to cut the Bedford lead to two. Smith then created a turnover in transition and got the ball to Paquette, who drilled a 3 to give the Cardinals a 45-44 lead with 55.7 seconds remaining.

Bedford took a timeout but Paquette came up with a steal out of the break and again made one of two free throws at the other end to make it 46-44 Bishop Guertin with 33.2 left. The Bulldogs took another timeout to look for the tying or go-ahead score, but the Cardinals tied up the ball, and with the possession arrow going their way, got it back with 21.7 seconds to go.

Paquette hit two more free throws to put Bishop Guertin up four points before Ava Dubois scored for Bedford to make it a two-point final.

"We figured it out and I’m not even sure how the heck we did it," Kreick said. "We decided with about two-and-a-half minutes left that we were going to run and jump them a little bit. We hadn’t done that all year long, so I don’t know if it surprised them or things just started going fast. We got a few turnovers, which got us back into it."

Bedford shot 39.6 percent from the field and outrebounded Bishop Guertin 46-29, but the Cardinals scored 31 points off the Bulldogs' 30 turnovers and they were just 6 of 15 at the free throw line.

"We outperformed them in every category except turnovers and free throws," Gibbs said. "We kept them below what they normally do from the line. They had two more points than us."