Cardinals open with big win over Tomahawks

NASHUA – The Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team wanted to make a statement Friday night to open the season.

The Cardinals certainly did that, showing why they were on the short list of preseason contenders in Division I.

Bishop Guertin outscored Merrimack 22-3 in the third quarter and cruised to a 78-30 win in the division opener for both teams.

Meghan Green had a game-high 25 points for the Cardinals, 15 of which game in the second half, while Gabriela Piercy added 16 points, as all 12 players on Bishop Guertin’s roster played, and all but one scored. That scoring balance started in the first half, with six players scoring as the Cards took a 36-15 lead at the break.

“It was important that we got the rest of the girls involved,” Bishop Guertin first-year coach Scott Hazelton said. “I’ve been stressing that in practice. Meghan (Green) is our best player and a lot of people are going to key on her. They had that confidence that when you’ve got it, you’ve got to take a shot. They weren’t really shy.”

Green was happy to see so many of her teammates get involved in the scoring.

“Almost everyone had points in this game, and that’s a good thing,” Green said. “When you start getting up there, everyone gets to score and it’s a great feeling. It takes off so much pressure.”

Merrimack got nine points from Kate Cole, who was forced to sit most of the third quarter after picking up her third foul. With the ’Hawks best player on the bench, Merrimack struggled from the field and the free throw line. Merrimack went more than a full quarter without a point in the second half and shot 7 for 20 from the line for the game.

“We’re inexperienced and I think we did well considering,” Merrimack coach Amy Larkin-Perez said. “We didn’t make adjustments well to some of their strengths. Bottom line was we just couldn’t hit our shots. If you can’t make a bucket you can’t get on the board.”

Olivia Kerouac scored Merrimack’s first basket of the game with 7:08 left in the first quarter to make it a 4-2 game, but Bishop Guertin went on a 12-2 run to lead 16-4. The ’Hawks closed to within 10 points before the end of the quarter, but the Cards went up 27-9 with 2:15 left until halftime.

Cole hit a 3-pointer 42 seconds into the second half to make it a 20-point game, but Bishop Guertin scored the next 25 points to take a 63-18 lead early in the fourth quarter.

“Second half we dug in and made some plays and were able to increase the lead,” Hazelton said. “We’re a young team and it’s a new system. We want to be an up-tempo, running team. It’s a learning process for these kids and we’ve been doing it for 14 days now. I thought for that, we did pretty well.”

Bishop Guertin will play next at Salem, while Merrimack heads to Manchester Central. Both game are scheduled for Dec. 13.