Newport
There are years when all the stars align and a strong talent pool emerges to bring rewards with victories and packed gymnasiums. Newport High boys basketball was in one of those pile-up-the victories cycles for several recent years, but graduation day a couple of years ago drained the talent pool, and refilling it has been challenging.
The Tigers went winless last year. This winter, Newport has accumulated one win in eight NHIAA Division III games after Monday’s 67-25 loss to Stevens at Wheeler Gym.
The Cardinals are enjoying the type of up cycle that sports teams sometimes have. They’ve been blessed with a vibrant talent pool that brought a state title in football and a runner-up finish in boys soccer last fall.
From those fall sports athletes has emerged a Stevens basketball team that has now won seven of its first nine in the league and 10 of its 12 starts overall.
“I hope they win it all,” second-year Newport coach Greg Pickering said of the Cards. “They’re a local team and, besides, my grandmother (Barbara Delaney) graduated from there. I wish them the best.”
The one down side of such a contest, according to Stevens boss Matt Baird-Torney, is the difficulty in coaching it.
“You want to win the game, but you don’t want to show up the other team,” he said.
So Baird-Torney did split his 10 players into two groups and played them close to equal minutes. All 10 Cardinals scored, with Henri Bourque (15) points and Zach O’Brien (13) leading the way.
“One of the things I liked was that you couldn’t tell a whole lot of difference between the two units,” Baird-Torney said. “The level of play never dropped off. If you are not careful, you can pick up some bad habits in a game like this.”
Stevens forward Nick O’Brien liked the defense the Cardinals displayed.
“We’ve been giving up around 48 points a game, so to give up just 25 tonight is what I liked,” said O’Brien.
Baird-Torney also felt that games like this are worrisome.
“These are trap games,” he said. “You go into the game as the big favorite, and the other team knows that they are huge underdogs. There are some good players on that Newport team. You have to be careful.”
Monday night belonged to Stevens (7-2 league, 10-2 overall), enough so that running clock time began once the visitors built a 35-point lead in the second half.
It didn’t help that Newport was once again without scrappy point guard Ty Richardson who played last week in Windsor but is still dealing with an his injured wrist.
“And he’s our best ball handler,” said Pickering, who hopes to have him back for Thursday at Hillsboro-Deering.
The Cardinals eliminated any mystery early, racing out to a 17-7 lead after one period and 35-13 at the half. Newport could never put a run together and finished with just seven field goals.
Noah Wood had a team-best 10 points, including three 3-pointers, for the Tigers (1-7, 2-9)..
“Every game has a purpose,” said Nick O’Brien. “Defense was that purpose tonight.”
Stevens will host Newfound on Friday, during which time the Cards’ D-III state football title banner will be unveiled.