What ifs....

What if the officials didn’t get the split second call right, giving Merrimack the Division I title?

 If you own seaside property in Northern California you’ve been given enough hints by Mother Nature to know something much bigger is coming. It might not be in your lifetime or even your children’s, but it is coming.

 This past season the NHIAA watched a game winning three pointer be waved off, because the officials didn’t see it go through the basket. Followed by an excellent call by a championship game official saving them from Deadspin, Barstool Sports (Round 2) and maybe even Sports Center.

 What if Noah Beygelman’s three pointer was ruled good?

 The official throws his arms up in the air as Merrimack players spill on to the floor in celebration while Central coaches & players plead their case that the shot seemed to come a split second late.

 Video evidence, pictures taken in real time and immediately tweeted out, show that in fact the light on the basket had signaled the clock had hit 0.0 with the ball still on Beygelman’s finger tips.

 The Central players are now in their locker room furious, hurt, confused and dismayed. Doc Wheeler is in a hallway pleading his case to NHIAA officials as well as Will Henderson and any high level official he can get in his sights.

 The ball did not get off in time, and here is the proof. Why is Merrimack dancing in their locker room with Pete Tarrier down the hallway??

 How do the Merrimack kids react? They are champions, an unbelievable moment that took thousands of hours of practice to attain. They are at center court hugging their parents, their grandparents, their friends, their girlfriend and any person that wants a hug. They are champions!

 But they’re not.

 They see the same images. Noah didn’t get the shot off in time and now the Central players are making their way out of Lundholm looking at them like they took credit for someone else’s invention.

 Do they want the Merrimack players to hand them the plaque back? Is this going to be reversed? Where are the adults to guide them here?

 That exact scenario was one whistle blow away from happening. A very good official got the call right. That same very good official easily could have missed it.

 We live in an age of instant replay, not only in the NBA, the NFL and MLB, but on your phone.

 Evan MacDonald hit a game winning three pointer at Keene in December that was recorded by a phone in the crowd, put on Twitter, retweeted by Brett Hanson and then viewed by me on my couch in Hampton while my daughter & I negotiated her bed time.

 This is the age we live in. The technology is waiting for us to catch up.

 Are we going to pretend this won’t happen again?

 Are we going to allow it to happen again? Because next time, the immediate call might not be correct.

 If you are willing to live with that you are willing to live with history being changed for 24 high school players and future adults. Reunions of ‘ The true 2016 champions’ and Merrimack kids living with their accomplishments being tarnished because people refused to use the two different video cameras working the game that day to acknowledge what we all knew minutes after it happened.

 The cliff just rattled again and more land just fell into the ocean.

 Consider this the final warning.
 
What if the Issaiah Chappell ruling set a new precedent?

 The Sunapee all-state guard, and leading scorer in Division IV during the 2015 season, announced last summer that he was leaving school to play for Bradford Christian Academy in Haverhill, Mass. NHsportspage article on the transfer

 The stories coming out of Chappell’s time at prep school vary depending on who you talk to but what is known is Chappell was seeing only limited playing time, was briefly suspended for an off the court infraction and decided to come back to Sunapee 5 games into the regular season (8 games if you include Holiday tournament games).

 The move was at first denied and then approved on appeal.

 So what if that becomes the norm and players & parents are able to reference the decision going forward? What if a 4-2 Pinkerton team gets Geo Baker back? What if a 6-0 Central team had gotten Brett Hanson back from Tilton Prep in the 2015 season?

 DJ Frechette recently announced his decision to go play prep and leave Nashua South before his senior year. What stops him from going there and coming back six games into the season if he loses the starting job to an underclassman?

 Doesn’t the ruling open the door for players to ‘Dip their toes in the water’ at a higher level and have a soft landing if they don’t find the situation & playing time they wanted?

 The decision didn’t affect the Division IV title race as Sunapee was eliminated in the quarterfinal round but future transfers could very well alter the landscape of an entire division halfway through the season.

 One Division I coach I spoke to about the situation said ‘They just opened up a huge can of worms for themselves by letting this kid come back after he played games and practiced there for three months.”

 If that’s the case when is the cutoff date?

 Chappell returned around January 16th. Coaches in Division IV argued that they are not allowed to let a new member of the team play after open tryouts end in the first week of the pre-season. So how can this happen January 16th?

 Where’s the line? Who are you going to be able to tell no to next time around?
 
What if Portsmouth had been in Division I this season?

 Poor Central. First I spell out a scenario where they unfairly aren’t given the title plaque and ten paragraphs later I’m back to question if they would have won at all if Portsmouth had made the move to Division I a year earlier.

 This hypothetical is the only one impossible to answer (if you’re keeping track #1) the coaches committee better get replay ASAP and 2) the eligibility committee has backed themselves into a major corner.

 Let’s back it up and start in the regular season. Does Portsmouth go 18-0 in Division I? Absolutely not. They lose a minimum of two games and I’d put them at 15-3. The biggest difference from Division I to Division II, besides the obvious level of play, is the weaker teams in the division.

 Portsmouth will beat weaker Division II teams by 45 points. In Division I if they would have played at Dover (2-16) they likely beat the Green Wave by 15 points.

 Games against teams ranked 7 to 12 are gimme wins for the Clippers in Division II. In Division I anyone of those teams (Winnacunnet, Nashua South, Memorial, Londonderry, Salem and Bishop Guertin) could beat Portsmouth on the right night.

 The championship game came down to the 3 seed vs. the 5 seed. In a wide open year does Portsmouth seize upon that and roll to the title?

 The Clippers have the best big man in Division I in Joey Glynn and first team all-state level guards in Cody Graham and Shon Parham. Does their lack of size outside of Glynn hurt them? No, we just watched Central win the title with Jaylen Leroy jumping center. The game is less reliant on size and Portsmouth’s defense was better than any defense we saw in Division I this season.

 I know Portsmouth felt like they could have competed for the title this season and I won’t argue that. They start 0-0 next December with a chance at history on the line.
 
 This and that…..

 The most interesting aspect of the 2016 off-season is going to be the realignment. Pembroke heads back to Division II, Portsmouth moves up, Kearsarge stays put, Farmington heads to Division IV, St. Thomas returns to Division III. Those are some but not all of the moves you’ll see over the summer but each feels right. Pembroke felt like they were stuck in the land of forgotten toys this season while Portsmouth would have made the jump up any time after Christmas. Farmington has talent and a good young coach so their move down bears watching……..Why is it more common for a parent to complain loudly about their varsity coach (who they do not pay) than the AAU coach who isn’t making their son any better?…and whom they pay $1,000 a summer...could it have something to do with admitting their own mistake?.......Pete Tarrier and I will host our 3rd annual Coaches Show at Buffalo Wild Wings in Concord this summer; our coaching panel this year will be Jay McKenna of Winnacunnet (Division I), Matt Regan of Pelham (Division II), Nate Camp of Kearsarge (Division III) and Trevor Howard (Division IV)…..Crowd noise Part III …yes we are still on this…I understand that we as a team at NHsportspage have a unique perspective in covering all four divisions equally but what are we to make out of the fact that we attend Division III & IV games and the AD’s are literally shushing their own students while the Division I & II AD’s leave the kids alone to …I don’t know…enjoy the game and come up with clever & funny chants?… Did Division III & IV get a memo no one else received? It comes off looking ridiculous and completely unnecessary……If you saw the highlight videos from Central at Trinity and Spaulding at Merrimack you see how much the students can add to the environment & intensity of the game…when are the lower divisions going to figure this out?.........the officials did a terrific job in the games I covered during the tournament and those included some down to the wire contests. Really well done……………10 seconds left in the game down two and one person in the state to choose to take the shot I’ll take Keith Brown every time…I would also be happy with DJ Frechette, Corey Gadwah, Jake Coleman, Cody Graham, Josh DeGrenier or Jaret Bemis taking that shot…if the shot was from 50 feet or more it’s Ronnie Silva all day…no contest…….Our 1,000 view club (the game videos that have already gone over 1,000 YouTube views..more will join the club this summer)…Coaches for a Cause Jamboree Day 2 (1,077 views), Nashua North vs Salem (1,029), Portsmouth vs Manchester West (1,000), Manchester West vs Bishop Brady (1,373), Pelham vs Conant (1,266), Conant vs Mascenic (1,006), Kearsarge vs Franklin (1,036), Division IV Championship: Littleton vs Portsmouth Christian (1,157), Division III Championship: Pelham vs Kearsarge (1,130), Division I Championship Preview Video (1,322) and the Division I Championship: Manchester Central vs Merrimack (1,223)……….The All-Glue Guy team (you can’t win without Glue Guys) or as it will be re-named..The All-John Zavala Team: Sam McCarthy of Nashua North, Nick Stokes of Woodsville, Seth Shea of Manchester Central, Paul Staude of Portsmouth Christian, Mike Lewis of Winnacunnet, Cam Deloreto of Pelham, Cole Briting of Londonderry, Raj Gandhi of Souhegan, Reggie of Milford (emotional support), Jack Briggs of Milford, Christian Peete of Portsmouth, Ethan Ellingwood of Littleton, Josh Bauer of Bedford, Christian Guay of Groveton, Dan McKillop of Merrimack, Jake Bosworth of Salem, Connor Nolan of Plymouth and Jake Ellis of Laconia………………..We will be having a post-series party at The Auburn Pitts some night next week where the NHsportspage & Fighting McIsaac's (and their parents) will try to mend fences after this historic series. Stay tuned for details and all of readers are welcome to join us to talk about the past season…as always unless you have 45 minutes to kill please don’t ask McIsaac about his wrestling career…….

 People to Thank……..

 First of all I want to give a very sincere thank you to all of the parents, coaches & players that registered with NHsportspage. We love what we do and we can only do it with our readers letting us know they are willing to support all the content we provide with a simple one-time registration. On behalf of Pete, Jennifer, Jon, Justin & Eliot….thank you very much……….Thank you to the coaches who went above & beyond anytime we came out to cover a game; whether it was lining up a sponsor to pay for the trip or encouraging the parents to support the website they read every week. We could not provide this coverage without people like Keith Matte, Jamie Walker, Mark & Louise Collins, Tim Goodridge, Trevor Howard, Sam Natti, Jay McKenna, Matt Regan, Nate Camp (a huge thank you to Nate Camp, the Kearsarge parents were incredible to us), Rob McLaughlin, Kevin Rines & our friends at Mascenic, Nate Stanton, Jim Mulvey, Dave Chase, Mark Elmendorf, Danny Bryson, Doc Wheeler, Eric Saucier, Rich Otis, Ed Tenney & Paul Skarin, Ken Garnham and finally Buddy Trask (for letting McIsaac & I sleep at his house)……these coaches dropped what they were doing to help us & to make sure their kids were getting state wide coverage and we truly appreciate it………I can’t thank them enough..…..Finally a thank you and momentary goodbye to one of our mystery coaches from the Staff Picks (I’m not saying which one). Sean Young would describe your 45 & over men’s league team as a group with ‘Incredible perseverance, intensity & moral integrity!’ He’s Johnny Cochran in an untucked dress shirt.

 Sean is the new head coach Great Bay Community College and one of our favorites. Epping is going to figure out real quick next season how good of a coach they just lost but it is Great Bay’s gain.

 Finally thank you to the people I am privileged to work with at NHsportspage. Pete Tarrier, Jennifer Chick, The Great Jon Kesty, Eliot Bless & Justin McIsaac. I appreciate the fact that the product we put out every day gives people the false impression we are some media company collecting a check on the 1st & the 15th of the month but that couldn’t be farther from reality.

 Pete is at this every day and he’s the guy the kids look for as soon as the game is over. He’s the best.

 Jen & Jon often stay up until 3 am to make sure everyone has the highlights to watch as soon as they get up and then head off to their 8 to 5 jobs on little or no sleep. They do this with no guarantee anyone will notice or even pay them. I appreciate what they do every single day and am excited for all of us transitioning to the new site.

 Justin is the best play by play man in New Hampshire and should be the BC hockey guy or working for some bigger network but that’s the radio business (Howard Stern nailed it in ‘Private Parts’). His www.Mcisaaconsports.com is taking off and will be back in a  few weeks with softball & baseball coverage.

 For those that will decide not to register to the site we will go to registration only through our web provider soon. We thank you for being a part of a truly unique high school sports website for our home state of New Hampshire.

 For those that have registered we will be back with coverage of the New Hampshire/Vermont Twin State game, The Annual CHAD Football game and continuing coverage of high school basketball & football. Thank you for coming along…

 Thank you for reading.