Claremont
For the Cardinals’ boys basketball team, it’s been much longer. The Cards reached the Class L final three times in five years from 1935-39 — the pennants still hang along the northeast corner of Carr Gym — but they haven’t returned to a title game since.
“The players know that very well. They were the first to point it out to me,” said third-year Stevens coach Matthew Baird-Torney, a 2006 graduate of rival Fall Mountain Regional. “It’s surprising, because Claremont has always been a basketball city. The kids here start young and play with passion.”
For the first time since towering center Kaleb Tarczewski donned the red and white in 2008-09, this year’s Cardinals (7-1, 4-1 D-III) appear poised to make a run at a championship.
They’ve got the skills, with athletic junior Noah Spaulding leading a group of five players averaging at least 7.4 points per game. They’ve got experience — all five starters are returning from last year’s 13-9 quarterfinalist — and they’ve got desire. Nine of the 10 players on Stevens’ roster were part of the school’s successful football or soccer programs this fall, and they want more of that winning flavor come March.
“There was one day between the football championship game and basketball tryouts, and everyone showed up ready to go,” Baird-Torney said. “Basketball is important to these guys.”
All five starters reached double figures in a 71-63 win at Mascenic last week. Two games before that, in a Connecticut River Shootout tussle with Woodsville, seven of the eight Stevens players who dressed, scored.
The Cardinals swept victories from three opponents in that nonleague tournament, including a win over D-II host Hanover, despite missing multiple starters due to family vacations. That disruption in player continuity obviously did nothing to hinder chemistry as the Cards returned to league play Wednesday against the Vikings with their most cohesive game to date. Ball distribution was key as Spaulding and Parker Smith led the way with seven and six assists, respectively.
“There has been a lot of unselfish play,” said Baird-Torney, whose team had its first hiccup of the season in a 59-48 loss at Monadnock on Friday, the last of six straight games on the road. “We’re letting the matchups dictate where the ball goes, even after someone has success shooting the ball early in the game. To me, that’s a sign of a mature basketball team.
“A lot of times, at this level, if someone makes a couple baskets early, they want to keep shooting and the rest of the team keeps giving him the ball. Our guys have been recognizing that there are four other guys on the floor, and that’s important.”
Smith, whose 13 points at Mascenic were only fourth among Cardinals, showed strong offensive awareness in that game. Going 2-for-2 on 3-point attempts early, he went on to score five of his remaining seven points at the free-throw line while taking advantage of the Vikings’ 3-2 defensive zone.
“That was great presence of mind by Parker to take what the defense was giving him,” Baird-Torney said. “A lot of guys will make a couple 3s and they want to keep heaving them up.”
Spaulding (16.0 ppg), the team’s point guard, is complemented by apt shooting guard Richard Bell (7.4), while the 6-foot-2 Smith (7.5) and 5-11 senior twins Zach O’Brien (12.9) and Nick O’Brien (9.6) give the Cardinals strong interior presence on both ends of the floor.
“We’re not the tallest team in the division, but we’re rarely outrebounded,” said Baird-Torney. “We’ve been good about crashing the boards.”
Teammates since elementary school, the O’Brien twins naturally possess a sixth sense in setting one another up. They also bicker at times like brothers do, but not to the team’s detriment.
“It’s just because we play with intensity. We want to play with that edge,” Nick O’Brien said. “But we’ve been doing a better job of channeling that energy the right way, not just me and Zach, but the whole team.”
Spaulding agrees.
“The Mascenic game got a little chippy, and when we were younger, that’s a game where we might have gotten a bunch of technicals,” he said. “We’re doing a better job keeping our mouths shut. We’re more comfortable just playing the game.”
Stevens reached the D-III quarterfinals each of the last three years, falling to Berlin twice and to Conant last season. The Cards haven’t been to the state semifinals since Tarczewski led them there in 2009. These Cardinals think they can get back this season.
“I can’t say (a championship) is not on our minds, at least getting to SNHU,” said Baird-Torney. “We’ve been close to winning in the quarters the last couple of years.”
Spaulding — the lone starter not part of Stevens’ football championship, having gotten oh-so-close with the soccer team — said this year’s hardwood version of the Cardinals is hungrier than ever.
“We’re lethal right now because of the experience and confidence that we have,” he said. “We definitely want to make a run.”
As promising as this season is, Zach O’Brien is cautious of looking too far ahead.
“We’re playing well, but we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you go 18-0 (in the regular season) if you can’t keep it going in the playoffs. So we’ve just got to keep executing.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.