Salem girls basketball rallies for playoff win over Bishop Guertin

SALEM - It was the third quarter of Tuesday night's Division I preliminary round game vs. Salem High School, and Bishop Guertin coach Olivia Orlando saw a familiar pattern rear its ugly head.

Her Cardinals, who were playing with confidence en route to a 20-8 first quarter lead, suddenly had none. The No. 5 Blue Devils sensed it to, soaring past BG for a 55-44 win.

“Kind of a similar problem we've run into in the past,” Orlando said. “We were playing timid, and playing not to lose, rather than fighting really hard to come away with that victory.”

As a result, the Blue Devils (14-5) will head to Portsmouth on Saturday to face the No. 4 Clippers (16-3), who eliminated Nashua South 62-27. And two-time defending champion BG's grip on Division I, fragile all season anyway in a rebuild, is over as the Cards wind up at 8-11.

Not counting the cancelled tourney of 2020 due to COVID-19, it's now certain that there will be a Division I title game without BG for the first time since 2015.

Salem coach Ricky Oliver, his team suffering through a lackluster first eight minutes, knew exactly what button to push.

“I just told them, they can't come in here and beat us twice in this building,” said Oliver, whose Blue Devils lost he here to BG 53-44 back on Jan. 25. “We're just going to play, make the next play.

“We had a great practice (Monday). I just kept reminding them to go back to that.”

The Salem sparkplug was junior guard Lindsay Goetz, who got her team's up-tempo style going in the second quarter and also set a tough defensive tone en route to a 20-point night.

“She has the toughest assignment defensively and she has to run the point all the time,” Oliver said. “She doesn't come out very often and actually looked at me when I took her out and I said 'I just need you to rest for one minute, then re-lock in.'

“You know who's going to fight and really want to get it done, and that's what we talked about the last two days.”

Goetz nearly tied the game late in the first half on a missed layup, but no matter. Down 26-21 at the half, the Blue Devils set a tone when Lillian George (14 points) hit a 3-pointer right away in the third quarter. They surged ahead to take a 37-36 lead going into the final eight minutes and secured the win by going 13 of 14 from the line during that span. Salem's Gabriella Mosto had 15 points – 13 on free throws.

“We have this (free throw) drill that we use all the time and they don't like it at all,” Oliver said. “We do struggle at the line and we get to the line a lot. But we had to make 'em.”

After BG's Holly Dufoe hit a 3-pointer to bring Guertin to within 41-40 with 3:20 left, the Blue Devils went on a 12-0 run and held BG scoreless for three minutes.

“Again, the mental battle, we struggled with it (Tuesday),” Orlando said. “Once we got a little rattled, it was hard to crawl out of that hole.”

Falling into that hole seemed to be Cards forward Thalia Drapeau, who had 11 points in the first quarter but managed just five the rest of the way.

As Oliver said, “We changed up our defense.”

“First half, yes, she was lights out,” Orlando said. “But even when she's not scoring, she affects the game in so many other areas, rebound, facilitating, and she's a great defensive player as well. We could have used those points, yes, but it's still great she impacts the game in other areas.”

Dufoe was the only other Cardinal in double figures with 11.

While the Blue Devils move on with zero seniors, BG graduates just three and had a freshman-sophomore dominated team this year.

“I'm really excited,” Orlando said of the future.“We obviously came into the year brand new to each other, all around – brand new team, brand new staff. So I'm really excited for this off-season as we'll have a lot to work on, a lot to build. I'm really excited, the future's bright.

“The sad news is losses are the worst, but the good news is you learn more from a loss, anyway. We'll look back on this years from now and we'll be a totally different program, a totally different team. I'm excited for the future.”

This story was provided by Tom King of the Nashua Telegraph.