Names change, but BG’s story remains same

Friday, November 25, 2011

Staff photo by GRANT MORRIS
Bishop Guertin teammembers hoist the Division II State Championship plaque over their heads after Saturday's game at Stellos Stadium in Nashua. BG took the title by winning 16-7 over Dover.

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There was a new football coach for Bishop Guertin High School this year, Travis Cote. That’s an old story.

That story gets older all the time. Why? Because the new coach kept an old tradition going: The Cardinals winning a Division II championship because of their defensive speed.

There were a lot of thrilling moments in Saturday’s 16-7 Guertin win at Stellos Stadium, but the theme throughout was the fact that Dover’s offensive unit had very little room to do anything.

Guertin’s defense pitched a shutout, with the Green Wave’s only score coming on a 92-yard Kyle Seawards fumble recovery and return for a touchdown. Seawards is the fastest player on the Green Wave roster, and he would’ve looked great in a Guertin uniform.

Thanks anyway. The Cardinals (9-3 overall, 9-1 in Division II) had their own defensive speedster in junior linebacker Blake Boudreau, whose interception helped turn the game around late in the third quarter with the Cards trailing 7-3. It gave Guertin the ball at the Dover 35, and 10 plays later senior fullback Paul Lipari – who actually took Boudreau’s place in the running back rotation in the second half to help the junior save his energy for defense – rumbled in from 3 yards out to give Guertin a lead it would never relinquish.

“We knew (about Boudreau),” Dover coach Ken Osbon said. “Timberlane was saying the same thing last week (in the semifinals). He’s a great player.

“Their front is great and strong, and in a championship game you’ve got to be able to run the ball.”

Dover had just 22 yards rushing, which is amazing because the Green Wave under Osbon have always been known for barreling over opponents on the ground. Overall the Guertin defense held Dover to just 137 total yards. There’s your fourth straight Division II crown and seventh in eight years right there.

“Everybody says it: Offense can win games, but defense wins championships,” Cote said. “That’s the thing about high school football. If you’ve got speed as a team, you can really slow people down. We’ve got good defensive speed. We’re better in space, we’re better when we can chase stuff down, and people aren’t trying to pound it right at us.

“We felt we matched up well with them because of our speed. We were able to keep them in check and didn’t give them any big plays today.”

No, the big plays, especially on defense, belonged to Guertin. Boudreau had 75 yards on six carries rushing the football, but it was on the defensive side of the ball where he made his mark, flying around like a player possessed. As he said afterward, “Defense is my game.”

He read Dover quarterback Tyler Zabkar perfectly and stepped in front of the intended receiver to make that huge interception, and he was constantly making big tackles in the Wave backfield (he also had a QB sack) or along the line of scrimmage. Only a good quick tackle saved him from taking that pick in for a touchdown.

“Once I saw the ball, I knew it was mine,” the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Boudreau said. “I was hoping for a pick-six, but all I know is I wanted my team to come out on top.”

Thanks in part to him, they did.

“He’s just a tough, tough kid,” Cote said. “Always plays with a passion and fire, fired up. Just brings tremendous passion to the table. I can’t say enough about how hard that kid plays all the time. He never stops. He never stops. He did a tremendous job today.”

Speed kills, and Boudreau knew it.

“Oh, definitely,” Boudreau said. “We try to get as fast as we can … That’s definitely the way I like to play. Fly. I like to make plays for our team, and hopefully that made a difference. They didn’t score any points.”

There you go. Defense is Blake Boudreau’s game, and it’s been Bishop Guertin’s game, too, during what has been an enviable championship run.

The names and faces change, but the story remains the same.