The competition should be plenty intense and the cause is a great one, giving local basketball fans aching for the start of the high school hoop campaign ample reasons to head out to the second annual Coaches For A Cause Boys’ Basketball Jamboree at Londonderry High School this week.
New Hampshire boys’ high school hoop squads from multiple divisions will face off, with three games slated for Friday, Dec. 12, and five more scheduled for the next day.
The admission fee will be $5 per day, and the proceeds will go to New Horizons for New Hampshire, an emergency shelter, food pantry, and soup kitchen in Manchester.
Londonderry High School graduate and former basketball standout Kevin Bonney (Class of 1984) – who went on to play college hoop and later coach boys’ basketball at Alvirne High in Hudson – is one of the organizers of the 2014 jamboree.
“As an alum of Londonderry High School, holding this year’s jamboree at that location adds on to the many happy memories I already have of my high school years, both on and off the basketball court,” said Bonney.
The Friday games start at 5 p.m., with the Alvirne Broncos facing off against the Blue Knights of Manchester West High.
At 6:30 p.m., the Goffstown Grizzlies and Sunapee Lakers will tip off, and then at 8 p.m. local folks will be able to get their first looks at 2013-2014 Division I Coach of the Year Nate Stanton’s Londonderry High Lancers as they face off against the Coe-Brown Northwood cagers.
The host team is coming off a 14-4 season, at the end of which the Lancers advanced as far as the Division I tournament quarterfinals.
The next day’s action begins at noon with the Trinity Pioneers of Manchester tipping off against Pelham High’s Pythons. Then at 1:30 p.m. it’ll be the Bishop Guertin Cardinals of Nashua battling the Berlin Mountaineers, and at 3 p.m. Manchester Memorial’s Crusaders will face Lebanon.
At 4:30 p.m., Pembroke Academy will run the court with Conant, and the jamboree comes to a close following the 6 p.m. match-up between the defending Division I champions from Manchester Central – led by the colorful coach “Doc” Wheeler – and perennial Division II power Portsmouth.