Field's return gave Bishop Guertin girls basketball a boost against Bedford

MANCHESTER - Things looked like they were going from bad to worse for the Bishop Guertin High School girls basketball team.

The Cardinals trailed Bedford in the third quarter of Saturday night's Division I championship game when center Abbi Field was knocked to the ground.

The Bishop Guertin junior grimaced in pain and stayed down for a moment. Officials started to signal for a trainer when Field popped up off the ground and jogged off the court.

As she approached her team's bench, Field broke into a smile and coach Brad Kreick gave his starting big a confused, questioning look. Field pointed to her eye and continued on toward the locker room.

"I came down and someone hit me and I couldn't see," said Field, who had a contact knocked out on the play.

"She lost a contact and had to go into the locker room for a couple of minutes," Kreick said. "I don't know, maybe that cleared her head, but she was enormous for us in the third quarter."

By the time she came back, Bishop Guertin was down five points in a defensive struggle with the Bulldogs, and immediately gave the Cardinals a boost.

It started with Field making 1 of 2 free throws to make it a four-point game with 1:31 left in the third. After a turnover by Bedford, Field made a layup at the other end to pull the Cardinals within two points.

The Bulldogs missed a 3 at the other end, Bishop Guertin got the rebound, and with 14 seconds left in the quarter, Field hit a running hook shot in the lane to tie the game at 22. The Cardinals would go on to a 35-31 win to capture their second title in the last five years.

"Abbi Field was huge for us in the third," Kreick said. "We just wanted to pound the ball down into the paint, see if we could just establish something and she did a great job getting us back in it. It’s a tie game going into the fourth quarter and it just energized the kids. They played the fourth quarter with a ton of energy and felt it."

In that fourth quarter, the Cardinals did what they had all season and let their defense dictate their offense.

Bishop Guertin never allowed more than 50 points a game all year, giving up that mark twice during the regular season. One of those two teams was Bedford, but in the final, the Cardinals held them in check, including allowing 13 points in the second half.

"Going into the fourth quarter, we were focused on that we really needed to shut them down," Bishop Guertin junior Meghan Cramb said. "We needed to focus on our good defense that we've been playing all season. We had to focus on shutting down their main players like we did the first time. The offense, it eventually came and it came off our defense."

The Cardinals held Bedford to 21.7 percent shooting from the field, one game after limiting Winnacunnet to 30.2 percent on field goals and recorded 11 steals against the Warriors.

"I think we just realized that if we run, we have an amazing team," Field said. "If we run and push the ball, and once we hit our stride, especially on defense, we were all set from there. We had been trying to do it the last two years, and I think this year, we all bought into it and the way coach wanted us to do it."

Bishop Guertin will have a big spot to fill with point guard Marie Laplante graduating, but the rest of the cast should return for the Cardinals next year.

So the big question for Kreick, who was in his first season leading the Cardinals, is what does he do for an encore?

"I wish I could tell you I'd thought about it," he said. "We're just going to enjoy this for a little while. We'll think about what comes next in a couple of weeks."