{"id":11646,"date":"2024-02-28T12:08:14","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T12:08:14","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Coe-Brown-Boys-Basketball-Kingswood-first-round-54181917\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=11646","title":{"rendered":"Boys\u2019 basketball: Connor Bagnell\u2019s 28-point night leads Coe-Brown into the quarterfinals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Coe-Brown
Coe-Brown guard Connor Bagnell drives to the basket against Kingswood forward Brady Moulton during the second quarter on Tuesday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Coe-Brown
Coe-Brown forward Quinn Salter gets fouled going to the basket against Kingswood on Tuesday night, February 27, 2024 in their opening round win.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Coe-Brown
Coe-Brown forward Jack Matson fights under the basket against Kingswood on Tuesday night, February 27, 2024 in their opening round win.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

NORTHWOOD \u2013\u00a0Tuesday night\u2019s first-round Division II playoff matchup between No. 4 Coe-Brown (15-4) and No. 13 Kingswood (8-11) was the type of game any coach in Dave Smith\u2019s position dreads: the third time playing a team you\u2019ve already beaten twice.<\/p>\n

For Smith\u2019s Bears, it could\u2019ve been easy to overlook the Knights, who they beat 52-39 on Jan. 3 and 64-35 on Feb. 2, and for most of the game, Kingswood hung around. Still, the Bears escaped with a 58-55 win as a last-ditch comeback from the Knights fell short.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they probably knew a lot of the stuff that we\u2019re going to do,\u201d Smith said of Kingswood. \u201cThey played a great game. Played a solid game. They\u2019re a solid team. They had a couple of big wins this year. They had a couple that maybe didn\u2019t go their way, but they had a couple of big wins. They\u2019re solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kingswood led 19-14 when Smith took a timeout with 4:53 left in the second quarter. Subsequently, the Bears went on a 12-0 run over the next four minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I could say, \u2018Yeah, let\u2019s go score 12 points now boys,\u2019\u201d Smith joked.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s just that we weren\u2019t in sync at that time. It looked like we were struggling a little bit, so we just had to settle in and get something good, try to find ourselves defensively again and get a good look.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coe-Brown senior guard Connor Bagnell carried the load for the Bears offensively with a game-high 28 points, including six made 3-pointers. Fellow senior Quinn Salter added 11 and junior Jack Matson scored eight\u00a0and had a couple key blocks.<\/p>\n

Bagnell started the game a bit cold shooting, but he turned it on the second quarter when he knocked down three of his six 3s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been like this all year,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHe\u2019s been a little up and down as far as the shooting part of it\u2019s concerned, but he\u2019s been consistent in all the other aspects of the game which you have to be. And what a great day for him to be at the top of his game. He\u2019s been practicing pretty well. He always practices hard, but you could tell, he\u2019s getting in good flow the last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win was also notable in that it was the 650th\u00a0of Smith\u2019s career. His players and the student section surprised him after the game, all holding up \u201cCoach Smith 650 wins\u201d posters to recognize the achievement. Smith is now the second-winningest coach in New Hampshire high school basketball history.<\/p>\n

But in true form, that\u2019s not what he wanted the focus to be on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as we got the win,\u201d he said, \u201cthat\u2019s all I care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coe-Brown advances to host No. 12 Kennett (9-10) on Friday night after the Eagles upset No. 5 Manchester West, 41-33. The Bears beat them twice during the regular season, 56-43 and 53-44, but Coe-Brown hasn\u2019t forgotten what happened last year in a similar situation. Facing No. 14 Oyster River in the quarterfinals, the Bears \u2013 who\u2019d won the regular season matchup by 31 points \u2013 lost, 40-36.<\/p>\n

With that still fresh in their minds, Smith and the Bears are taking nothing for granted.<\/p>\n

\u201cKennett\u2019s a very solid team,\u201d Smith said. \u201cFortunate at least we got them (at home). That\u2019s a help, and\u00a0it\u2019s a surprise as far as standings are concerned, but Kennett\u2019s had a couple huge wins this year.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0kind of a similar team to Kingswood.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NORTHWOOD \u2013\u00a0Tuesday night\u2019s first-round Division II playoff matchup between No. 4 Coe-Brown (15-4) and No. 13 Kingswood (8-11) was the type of game any coach in Dave Smith\u2019s position dreads: the third time playing a team you\u2019ve already beaten…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":11647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=188]Eric Rynston-Lobel[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,508],"tags":[374,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-11646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-youth","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-coe-brown-northwood-academy","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/43031703-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11648,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11646\/revisions\/11648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11646"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11646"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}