Bishop Guertin girls basketball finishes regular season with victory over Pinkerton

NASHUA - On a night when the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team was playing for nothing more than pride, the Cardinals turned in what coach Brad Kreick felt might be their best performance of the season.

And the Cardinals did it against one of the top teams in Division I while watching two starters go down with injuries in the second half.

Bishop Guertin broke open a close game with a 17-2 run in the third quarter and held off Pinkerton Academy in the fourth to finish the regular season with a 65-53 win over the Astros. The Cardinals, who had already locked up the fifth seed in D1, end the regular season at 13-5 while Pinkerton, which clinched the No. 2 seed despite the loss, is 15-3.

"From start to finish, probably our most complete performance all year long," Kreick said. "The kids played with great poise. They kept their composure. We told them it was going to be a four-quarter game and it absolutely was. Four-point game at halftime and we made a nice run in the third quarter."

The Cardinals led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter and held the Astros scoreless for more than four minutes while quickly building the lead.

"We didn’t handle the press well, which is kind of shocking to me because we knew it was coming," Pinkerton coach Lani Buskey said. "You don’t play BG without knowing the press is coming. I think it was a composure thing for us. We lost it in the third and by the time we got it back, and we came back, but by then, it was too deep of a hole."

Pinkerton got back within nine points before the end of the third quarter, but Bishop Guertin pushed the lead back to 18 points with a 9-0 run to start the fourth. The Astros again got the lead down to nine with 2:45 remaining, but the Cardinals made just enough free throws - 8 of 14 at the line in the final 2:23 - to keep a comfortable lead.

Hannah Muchmore led the way for the Cardinals, scoring 12 of her 18 points in the second half, while Caroline Hoffer added 13 points. Bishop Guertin got a bit of a scare twice in the second half, when Erin Carney and Bri Wilcox both went down with ankle injuries on separate plays. Neither returned, but Kreick believed both would be fine.

"Erin is normally our leading scorer, and I was thinking that I needed to step up and be a team leader," Muchmore said of Carney's injury, which happened midway through the third quarter. "It made me more determined to look over and see one of my best friends down. It made me want to work harder."

Pinkerton got 21 points from Brooke Kane while Amanda Lemire and Cydney Lessard added eight apiece. The Astros started slow, falling behind 6-0 before finally getting on the board with 2:40 left in the first quarter. From there, it was a back-and-forth first half until the Cardinals went on a 9-3 run to lead 26-22 at the break.

It was still a four-point game early in the third when two Pinkerton turnovers led to points for Bishop Guertin. The Astros took a timeout, but the Cardinals got the ball back and scored again to make it 34-24.

"We got the game sped up a little bit in the third," Kreick said. "We got to the basket, we got downhill, we attacked the basket and didn’t settle for long-range jump shots."

Two quick baskets by Wilcox and Hoffer made it a 14-point lead and Muchmore scored with 2:13 left in the quarter to make it 45-26. But Pinkerton was finally able to answer back after that, as Lemire hit a 3 and Kane stole the ball near midcourt and went in for a layup.

After a Bishop Guertin timeout, Lessard hit a 3 and Kane added another basket for a 10-0 Pinkerton run that made it a nine-point game.

But from there, the teams traded runs and the Astros couldn't get any closer.

"I’m proud of my girls," Buskey said. "They’re doing everything I said, but you get within nine, and then it’s back to 12, and you get within eight, and its 14. Too much of a fight at the end without enough legs."