Bishop Guertin girls basketball pulls away late to beat Merrimack

NASHUA - The final score doesn't always tell the entire story.

Take Bishop Guertin's 44-32 win over Merrimack on Thursday night. On paper, it was a 12-point win that helped the Cardinals improve to 4-1 in Division I, while the Tomahawks fell to 0-6.

But after one quarter, Merrimack was the one in the lead. Midway through the third quarter, Bishop Guertin coach Jeremy Faulkner benched his top seven players and would have left them there for the rest of the game had fatigue not started to set in for the five on the court.

And with three minutes to play, it was a five-point game.

"We didn't play well at all," Faulkner said. "The last three games, things have just gone downhill. Practices are uptempo and we're doing all the things right, but we're having a hard time translating all that into games. I've got to find a better way of helping the girls figure out how to do the right things on the floor."

Meghan Cramb led Bishop Guertin with 10 points while Lauren Wyllie and Caroline Hoffer had six points apiece.

But the Cardinals turned the ball over 24 times, including nine times in the first quarter.

"They played with a ton of heart, which I love," Merrimack coach Courtney Cheetham said. "We’re 0-6 right now, but the combined record of the teams we've played, taking away one away game, is 21-5.

"We're playing solid teams and we’re competing with them. It's hard when that's your record, coming out and competing against a team that has one loss. They were hustling after everything."

Amanda D'Amico led Merrimack with 10 points, including two 3-pointers, and Jolie Jacoby and Abby Yuan each added six points. But the Tomahawks struggled to make shots, going the entire third quarter without a field goal, and finished the night 10 of 21 from the free throw line.

"The win isn't there, but in these games, we're not judging ourselves on win-loss," Cheetham said. "What we're looking to do is keep competing now, build that fight, work through some emotional stuff and stay mentally tough."

That fight got Merrimack the lead in the first quarter. Down 9-4, the Tomahawks went on a 6-0 run in the final 1:11 of the quarter, getting four points from Jacoby, to lead 10-9 after eight minutes. But Bishop Guertin outscored Merrimack 16-6 in the second quarter and got the lead up to 11 points, 32-21, going into the fourth.

But midway through the third, Faulkner substituted for all five players on the floor, and kept his top seven on the bench.

"We made the switch of taking everyone out because we'd told them numerous times what we wanted them to do, especially communication, and they weren't doing anything we asked them to do," Faulkner said. "We probably gave them too many chances.

"I put the other girls in and the flow changed. There was continuity on the offensive end, good passing and cutting. On the defensive end, there was good communication, weak side help got where they were supposed to be. I was going to stick with them until the end, but I could see them start to die off and I didn’t want to set them up to fail at the end."

After the Cardinals took a 34-23 lead on a jumper by Wyllie, Merrimack went on a 9-3 run, highlighted by back-to-back 3-pointers by D'Amico, the second of which made it a 37-32 game with 3:03 to play.

With the starters back in for Bishop Guertin, Cramb answered with a 3, and after Merrimack missed a pair of free throws, Molly Dee made it a 10-point game with layup.

"The starting five finally did what I asked them to do," Faulkner said of the final minutes. "We're not playing with passion right now. Merrimack could easily have a winning schedule right now.They could have easily beat Bedford, they could have easily beat Spaulding, they could have easily beat us (Thursday)."