Merrimack boys basketball hangs on late to beat Bishop Guertin

MERRIMACK - There are going to be some bumps in the road for the Merrimack High School boys basketball team on offense as it gains varsity experience.

Good thing for the Tomahawks, they've got defense and free throw shooting down.

Merrimack kept Bishop Guertin in check for a half and made its free throws down the stretch Friday night to beat the Cardinals 47-41.

Ian Roberts scored a game-high 16 points and Zach Kerr added 14 points as the Tomahawks (2-2) held the Cardinals (1-3) to 14 points in the first half. After scoring 21 points in the game's first 10 minutes, Merrimack scored just 10 points in a 16-minute stretch in the second and third quarters, but was able to hang on thanks to its defense.

"We struggle to score and I thought we came out and played pretty good offense in the first quarter," Merrimack coach Tim Goodridge said. "It was tough to maintain making a lot of shots like that. Your legs get into you as the game gets going and we struggled offensively, but we were very determined and played pretty darned good defense."

And the Tomahawks were good from the foul line, making 8 of 10 in the final 3:14 of the game, while Bishop Guertin was 7 of 20 for the game, including 4 of 14 in the second half while shooting toward the Merrimack student section.

"I was happy with the way they played, honestly, but we just didn't make foul shots," Bishop Guertin coach Jim Migneault said. "You can't do that. The students are great here and they do a very good job, but you've got to make those. It seems like you miss one, you miss a second."

Kyle Gavin led the Cardinals with 11 points and Jackson Houseman added nine, but Bishop Guertin struggled to score early, falling behind 21-9 with 5:51 left in the second quarter.

But from there, Merrimack's offense started to go cold, as the Tomahawks missed shots. At the other end, the Cardinals couldn't take advantage and trailed 23-14 at halftime.

After trailing by 12 points with 4:47 left in the third quarter, Bishop Guertin went on a 12-2 run to pull within two points in the final seconds of the quarter. But a 3-pointer by Kerr with less than a second to play made it a five-point game and swung momentum toward Merrimack.

"We had some great contributions from Zach Kerr and Ian Roberts," Goodridge said. "They were huge. Franzen ran a really good floor game. Everyone is trying to take him out of the game and he did a really nice job distributing and taking the pressure. We had some turnovers, but we're young and we’re going to have turnovers."

The free throw problems started early in the fourth quarter for Bishop Guertin, when Alex Arika missed all three free throws when he was fouled on a 3-point attempt. Gavin made one of two moments later, but Arika missed two more and Mike Rinko came up short on the front end of a one-and-one.

The Tomahawks started making their free throws at the other end, as Kerr and Dylan Richardson combined to make six straight and put Merrimack up 45-34 with 1:52 left.

"That was a huge win for our program," Goodridge said. "Most of these kids are playing their first year of varsity basketball. They're hyped up and they haven't figured things out quite yet. If that stuff starts falling, we could be pretty tough. I'm hoping it happens sooner than later."