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# Bishop Guertin, Goffstown preparing for stretch run in D1 boys basketball
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/bishop-guertin-goffstown-preparing-for-stretch-run-in-d1-boys-basketball/
- Published: 2022-01-14T12:00:41.000Z
- Updated: 2022-01-14T12:00:41.000Z
- Description: Opening night was rough for the Bishop Guertin High School boys basketball team, the defending champs who graduated all five starters from last season’s Division I title team. "When we went to Bedford that first night with the big crowds our guys looked shell shocked,” BG coach John Fisher said of h
- Author: Tim O'Sullivan
- Tags: Winter Sports, Bishop Guertin, boys basketball, Division I, Goffstown, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

Opening night was rough for the Bishop Guertin High School boys basketball team, the defending champs who graduated all five starters from last season’s Division I title team.

"When we went to Bedford that first night with the big crowds our guys looked shell shocked,” BG coach John Fisher said of his team’s 52-29 loss back on Dec. 10\. “We were missing shots, we were missing layups, we were missing the rim. It was a state tournament atmosphere and most of our players had only ever played in a good JV game. That’s a wake up call.”

Fisher was confident his team could answer the call, despite the final score and all the missing against Bedford. The coach was right, and the Cardinals have rebounded from that loss to post a 6-3 record through the first half of the season.

Junior guard Matt Santosuosso, who missed that opening game, is one of two returners that played significant minutes for last year’s team. He’s leading the team in scoring at 13.0 points per game and helping on the glass with 4.4 rebounds per game. It’s no surprise that Santosuosso is stepping into a bigger role, but the arrival of junior Luke Anderson as the team’s second leading scorer at 12.0 ppg might have caught some people off guard, just not anyone at BG.

“He led the JV team in scoring last year and he led the freshman team in scoring when he was a freshman, so the fact that he can shoot is not a great mystery to us in the program,” Fisher said of Anderson, who also leads the team in steals with 2.4 per game and chips in 4.0 rebounds per contest. “But the fact that he stepped onto a varsity court as junior and immediately began scoring is helpful. I was hoping, but you never know.”

Javari Ellison is the other returner who saw big minutes last season, and the 6-foot-6 junior center is playing well on both ends of the floor so far this season, averaging a team-high 5.8 rebounds per game to go along with 7.4 points per contest. Guard Tyler Mackey has done some of everything for the Cardinals (5.4 ppg, 4.4 rpg, team-high 2.9 assists per game) and big men Ben Mullett (5.0 ppg, 3.9 rpg) and Brad Matarazzo (2.2 ppg, 3.0 rpg) have put in work down low.

Still, Fisher wants more consistency from his team. He’d like to see more communication on defense, but he acknowledges it takes practice time to develop that kind of chemistry, and practice time has been scarce in this condensed schedule. The coach is happy with his players' offensive execution and feels like they’re getting good shots, he’d just like to see more of them go in.

“We’ve been up and down. Some nights we look polished, some nights we don’t,” said Fisher, who also talked about how health has been a factor in that inconsistency. “Covid-19 has hit our whole program. We’ve probably had a third of the program out at one time or another, and that’s not an excuse, I know everybody is dealing with it, but that’s just the way it is. You look at some of the results in games across the division and you think, ‘How did that happen?’ But you really have to know the backstory in the those game and what kids are playing and what kids are out.”

That’s certainly been the case at Goffstown, where the Grizzlies are 8-2 and near the top of the D1 standings despite the games missed by some of their players.

“You never want to not have kids available, but having a rotating cast of characters has been beneficial in the sense that it’s given a lot of guys the opportunity to get game minutes and game reps, and hopefully that will help us out down the stretch,” Goffstown coach Ryan Cowette said.

The Grizzlies opened the season with a four-game winning streak that saw them average 70 points per game, but then a combination of missing players and poor performances led to back-to-back big losses – 62-41 against Nashua North on Dec. 22 and 64-45 at Exeter on Dec 30.

Goffstown bounced back from the mini two-game skid with a 57-56 win at Salem in a wild finish. The Blue Devils were down by one and inbounding the ball with just 2.5 seconds left, but they managed to get up two shots before the horn sounded because the clock didn’t start until after the first shot, which may have been too late itself.

“On the bus ride home I was wondering what would have happened if either of those shots went in, because there’s no video reply, there’s no review,” Cowette said. “It would have been scary.”

Instead, it was a key win for the Grizzlies. Not only were they coming off those two big losses, they were also missing their floor leader and top scorer in senior point guard Rob Baguidy (18.0 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.3 apg) and their leading rebounder in junior forward Mason Blondeau (11.3 ppg, 6.7 rpg). Sophomore guard Cam Hujsak stepped into the void, starting the game blistering hot from the outside and finishing with a game-high 23 points.

“Without (Hujsak) having that breakout game, I don’t think the result is the same that night at Salem,” Cowette said. “And I don’t want to overstate it, but if we don’t win that game I’m not sure we go on the little run we we’ve been on since then. I think that win was huge for us.”

Goffstown followed up the Salem win with a nice 66-54 decision against an athletic, hard-working Nashua South team, and then posted a pair of convincing victories at Concord (62-45) and against Spaulding (76-39).

Last season’s leading scorer, Aiden O’Connell, is second on the team this season at 15.7 ppg and is chipping in 3.3 rpg. Physical forward Peyton Strickland is averaging 9.5 ppg and 5.5 rpg, Hujask is averaging 7.5 ppg and 3.7 rpg and senior Will Sasso is adding 7.0 ppg and 5.0 rpg. It’s a balanced attack, which has been a key for the Grizzlies, who want to make sure they keep it that way for the second half of the season and keep improving when they can.

“With such limited practice time due to the schedule, we’re just trying to make the most of each opportunity we have together and continue to improve,” Cowette said. “We want to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season, so whatever we can do to put ourselves in that position is what we’re hoping for as a coaching staff.”