{"id":11652,"date":"2024-03-02T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-03-02T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Pembroke-Boys-Basketball-Quarterfinal-54182191\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=11652","title":{"rendered":"Boys\u2019 basketball: Joe Fitzgerald\u2019s 26 points lift Pembroke over Merrimack Valley in D-II quarterfinal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pembroke
Pembroke guard Joe Fitzgerald takes a 3-pointer over center Logan Gabour in the second half of a Division II quarterfinal game against Merrimack Valley on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Merrimack
Merrimack Valley guard Trevor Simonds (13) fights for a rebound against Pembroke forwards Devin Riel (left) and Javien\u00a0Sinclair during the second half of the Division II quarterfinal game on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke
Pembroke guard Joe Fitzgerald drives to the basket in the second half of the Division II quarterfinal against Merrimack Valley on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke
Pembroke guard Joe Fitzgerald (right) battles guard Boston Bradicich during the first half of the Division II quarterfinal against Merrimack Valley on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke
Pembroke guard Joe Fitzgerald is called for an offensive foul as he goes over center Logan Gabour in the second half against Merrimack Valley on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Merrimack
Merrimack Valley center Logan Gabour hits a runner during the first half against Merrimack Valley on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Pembroke
Pembroke guard Evan Berkeley whips a pass around Merrimack Valley center Logan Gabour during the second half of the Division II quarterfinal game on Friday night.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

PEMBROKE \u2013\u00a0The No. 3 Spartans (18-2) had ample reason to feel concern, trailing\u00a0No. 11 Merrimack Valley (9-11), 23-22, at halftime of Friday night\u2019s Division II boys\u2019 basketball quarterfinal.<\/p>\n

With the Pride having\u00a0just come off an upset overtime win over No. 6 Laconia on Tuesday, there was no reason it couldn\u2019t happen again. But then Pembroke senior Joe Fitzgerald locked into a zone, and off the Spartans went.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He scored 11 points in the third quarter and seven more in the fourth, guiding Pembroke to a 54-47 win\u00a0and securing the Spartans a berth in the semifinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he settled down some,\u201d Pembroke head coach Mike Donnell said of Fitzgerald who finished the night with 26 points. \u201cI thought in the first half he was rushing things. I thought he was rushing shots. I thought he was trying to do too much. I think in the second half, he decided that he was just going to play\u00a0his game, and he got some good passes. He got off some good screens, and his shooting was very effective in the second half for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Fitzgerald, the Spartans received 13 points from junior Devin Riel and 12\u00a0points from junior Evan Berkeley. It was one of Pembroke\u2019s uglier offensive performances, but at this point in the season, whatever it takes to survive and advance is sufficient.<\/p>\n

Donnell said he was prepared for a rock fight;\u00a0his players seemed to be caught a little more by surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is what I expected. My kids did not expect it,\u201d he said of the slow-paced first half.\u00a0\u201cThey came in very confident, and I\u2019m always the one that\u2019s the concerned person, and I knew Valley was going to come out and play. Tim (Mucher)\u00a0had those kids worked up well. They played well. … They\u2019re a lot bigger than we are, and we struggled. I thought for us to only be down by one point after the first quarter was a blessing in disguise because we did not play very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

For MV, it was a disappointing end to a rollercoaster season. Coming off the high of the Laconia win, the Pride just couldn\u2019t generate enough offense late to avoid a third loss to the Spartans this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, head coach Tim Mucher said, there was little to feel regret over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of their efforts,\u201d he said. \u201cWe got some quality, high-character kids here. They didn\u2019t take one possession off. Very coachable. I thought our defense was very good tonight, they just hit more shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

The loss concludes the year for a team that Mucher said before the season\u00a0was good enough to get to the championship game at UNH. But an injury to junior Aiden Gray and general inconsistency seemed to hold the Pride back from reaching its full potential.<\/p>\n

Friday ended the careers of MV\u2019s seniors \u2013\u00a0Logan Gabour\u00a0(14 points), Trevor Simonds (11 points), Luke Dougherty (four points),\u00a0Andrew Surprenant (three points), Mingso Lawati and\u00a0Nate Joubert. Mucher noted that there\u2019s no other group he would\u2019ve wanted to go to battle with each day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll take my team to anybody, and I wouldn\u2019t trade them for anybody,\u201d he said. \u201cMy team, I thought we demonstrated a lot of toughness tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t lose the game; we just ran out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the gym, Pembroke\u00a0celebrated its second straight trip to the final four and a rematch with No. 2 Hanover (18-1), a team it lost to, 53-31, back on Jan. 15.<\/p>\n

The Bears have turned in masterclass defensive performances all season, holding opponents to an average of 30.2 points per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s how slow they play, but more importantly, how patient they are when they\u2019re doing it,\u201d Donnell said of Hanover\u2019s defense. \u201cI have never seen a high school team buy into a defensive scheme like Hanover has bought into (coach Ben Davis\u2019)\u00a0defense this year. It wasn\u2019t a fluke. I thought it was a fluke, and then they did it every single game for the rest of the year. The team is totally bought in. They\u2019re confident with what they do, and we gotta disrupt that process.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, the Spartans won\u2019t be caught off guard like they were during the regular season meeting. Hanover won just five games a year ago, so when the Bears traveled to Pembroke in mid-January, perhaps it was a bit easier for them to fly under the radar.<\/p>\n

That won\u2019t be the case when the two teams face off on Tuesday with a trip to the championship game hanging in the balance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a game the boys are looking forward to. It\u2019s a game that I\u2019m looking forward to,\u201d Donnell said. \u201cWe will be prepared for them this time. We\u2019ll play differently. I know they\u2019re going to want to slow the ball down tremendously, and if we have to play that type of basketball, we can do that too.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEMBROKE \u2013\u00a0The No. 3 Spartans (18-2) had ample reason to feel concern, trailing\u00a0No. 11 Merrimack Valley (9-11), 23-22, at halftime of Friday night\u2019s Division II boys\u2019 basketball quarterfinal.With the Pride having\u00a0just come off an upset overtime win…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":11653,"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_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,508],"tags":[24,505,274],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[533],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-youth","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","tag-pembroke-academy","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/43057557-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652","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=11652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11654,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions\/11654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}