> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Bishop Guertin girls basketball takes charge, beat Pinkerton win third straight D1 title - URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/bishop-guertin-girls-basketball-takes-charge-beat-pinkerton-win-third-straight-d1-title/ - Published: 2018-03-11T12:00:03.000Z - Updated: 2018-03-11T12:00:03.000Z - Description: MANCHESTER – When a team plays great defense, it can make things miserable for the opposition. For the final three quarters of Saturday’s Division I championship, the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team made life miserable for Pinkerton Academy. The No. 5 Cardinals stifled the No. 2 Ast - Author: Joe Marchilena - Tags: Division I, Bishop Guertin, championship, girls basketball, Pinkerton, playoffs, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44 MANCHESTER – When a team plays great defense, it can make things miserable for the opposition. For the final three quarters of Saturday’s Division I championship, the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team made life miserable for Pinkerton Academy. The No. 5 Cardinals stifled the No. 2 Astros from baseline to baseline and turned that defense into enough points to cruise to a 54-34 win at Southern New Hampshire University. For Bishop Guertin, it was the third straight championship and fourth in program history. Erin Carney led the way for the Cardinals (17-5), scoring nine of her 14 points in the second half, while Caroline Hoffer closed out her high school career with 12 points and six rebounds. Brianna Wilcox added eight points and seven rebounds, as Bishop Guertin held a 35-25 edge on the boards. But it was on the defensive end where the Cardinals controlled the game, forcing Pinkerton into 17 turnovers – including 11 steals, four by Carney – and limiting the Astros (17-4) to just 14 field goal attempts in the second half. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/jmd1gbballfinal031018-b11p14-wm.jpg) Pinkerton's Madison Mahoney tries to block a shot by Bishop Guertin's Ava Owens. “It’s such a cliché to say defense wins championships, but it’s true,” Bishop Guertin coach Brad Kreick said. “We spent a lot of time watching film over the last 48 hours and every time we watched Pinkerton, the more scared you get. How are we going to stop this kid? How are we going to stop that kid? “They’re as good as shooting team as we’ve played all year long. You just hope that it sinks in with the kids when you say it’s going to come down to who defends better. Our kids were fantastic defensively, particularly in the half court.” Pinkerton got 18 points from Brooke Kane, with 10 of those coming in the fourth quarter after the Cardinals led by as many as 24 points. Amanda Lemire added seven points but the Astros had a hard time finding open passing lanes and room to shoot for most of the night. “We lost our system,” Pinkerton coach Lani Buskey said. “BG was doing BG things. You know the BG things, but the girls just didn’t react to it. When you don’t react and you give them any cushion, eight points feels like 20, and 20 feels like 40. “I kept trying to motivate them. It wasn’t a lack of effort on their part, but we just couldn’t get over the hump. What BG does is when you can’t get over the hump, they make it impossible.” The tide started to turn for the Cardinals in the final moments of the first quarter. With the score tied 8-8, Carney picked off a deep pass near the timeline, rushed to the top of the key and buried a runner for a buzzer-beating 3. Bishop Guertin took the lead and the momentum, turning that basket into a 14-2 run to take a 22-10 lead with 2:43 left in the first half. A 3-pointer by Lemire to end the half got Pinkerton within 11 points, 26-15, going into the break. “At the end of the first quarter, even with that buzzer-beater, a good team should overcome that,” Buskey said. “The second quarter, we needed to go right back at them and we just couldn’t. They had built a lead and our goal at halftime was to cut it in half. We’re not going to get it all at once, just cut it at half, but in the third quarter, we just couldn’t. The gap got bigger.” Pinkerton got back within 10 points on a basket by Kane with 5:50 left in the third, but Carney started to take over on offense, scoring seven of Bishop Guertin’s 14 points in the quarter. The Cardinals ended the frame on an 11-3 run to lead 40-22 going into the fourth. “(Carney) is a scorer,” Kreick said. “As long as she’s taking good shots in the flow of our offense, scorers have to shoot the ball. “I said to her walking off the court at halftime, you’re taking good shots, you get those in the second half, keep shooting the basketball. The odds are going to be in our favor that she’s going to start scoring. I thought she did great in not being tentative and knew to attack and look for her offense.” Bishop Guertin continued to widen the gap in the fourth quarter until both teams started subbing late. With the starting five out of the game, the players on the bench surrounded Hoffer, celebrating the lone team's lone senior with a group hug. "I’m running out of things to say about the kid," Kreick said. "She’s just such an amazing kid, on the court and off the court. We’re going to miss her dearly. That is a gaping hole on and off the court, tangibles that we’ll have to deal with."