BY RYAN O’CONNORMike Wenners, the Central girls basketball coach, admitted he’d rather forget the tough conclusion to the Little Green’s otherwise successful season. What will stick in his memory is the effort and determination his young squad utilized to reach the Class L semifinals. “I’m very proud of them because ...

The Hooksett Youth Athletic Association seventh- and eighth-grade girls travel basketball team won the Manchester Suburban Basketball League Division II championship at the Rockingham Athletic Club in Plaistow recently. Most of the team’s 10 eighth-graders played together the past three years, including a winless first season. Hooksett finished ...

BY MATT SCHOOLEYThe intensity of the postseason is still weeks away, but no one told the Central and Trinity boys basketball teams. The Little Green knocked off the undefeated Pioneers, 56-48, on Friday, Jan. 30, in a high-octane game that set up a three-way tie atop the Class L standings near the season’s midpoint. After Central headed to ...

BY JERRY LIPTAKTwo straight appearances in the Class L boys basketball finals – and two straight losses to Salem – have Trinity’s head coach, Dave Keefe, hoping the third time will be charming indeed. Though he lost star Ryan Bourgeois of Bedford to graduation, Keefe returns super senior Jordan Laguerre and Hooksett’s ...

BY MATT SCHOOLEYFollowing a loss to Winnacunnet in the state finals last year, the Central girls basketball team hopes a little experience leads a largely young team back for a second shot at the two-time Class L champs. This year’s Little Green team has just three returning players who earned significant court time last year, including ...

BY JERRY LIPTAKThe question for fourth-seeded Central: how do we, after losing to this team by 16 points on our home court just a few weeks ago, stop unbeaten and top-seeded Salem? The Little Green found an answer – incomplete, it turns out – in the Class L boys basketball semifinals. Still, they proved they could more than compete ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORWith his fourth-seeded squad playing its best basketball of the season, Central boys basketball coach Doc Wheeler said a 16-point home loss to undefeated Salem two weeks earlier helped propel his young hoopsters into the Class L semifinals. The Little Green have won five in a row since the embarrassing setback Feb. 22, ...

BY MATT SCHOOLEYMany times in practice, teams run a drill in which every player must touch the ball before a shot is taken. It doesn’t always translate into game play. It did for the Central High School boys basketball team, which consistently made the extra pass and shot past visiting Winnacunnet High School, 71-44, on Friday, Jan. 4. It ...

BY RYAN O’CONNORFor Hooksett-area teams and individual athletes, 2007 was a year in which the surprising became the norm, particularly at the high school level. Though squads such as the Central girls tennis team finished tops in Class L and Cawley Middle School collected multiple titles, other perennial contenders bowed out of the ...

BY MATT STOUTSitting inside one of the many locker rooms buried in the bowels of Lundholm Gymnasium, the Manchester Central boys basketball team did as it usually does following a game Thursday, March 15. Coaches talked and players listened. Players talked and coaches listened. The Little Green’s post-game discussion has been known to teach ...