Can't Wait to Be Back
Sitting with three friends amidst a mob of people at Bow High School last night while watching the D3 semifinal between Kearsarge and Mascoma, one of the friends commented: “Sure is good to enjoy a game with no vested interest.” The longtime parent of a basketball playing family knew the opposite feeling. Tonight, Conval kids weren’t playing. We could relax.
Still, we could all relate to the tournament environment, and the tension, and the people who drove a long way from home to support their team. In the chaos, someone asked how the Conval boys made out the other night, and we said they won, and it looked like they might be in this sort of environment, too, in a couple of weeks. Barely alive, but alive nonetheless.
Where have we seen this before? And in a moment, there was a flashback to another Conval team that barely got into the playoffs, and the great story they told…
In the 1971-72 season, the second year of Conval High School, few in the state expected much of a team that lost the bulk of its starters from an outstanding 16-4 premiere season. The Cougars were, as they say, off the radar. What they forgot was senior Paul Boule, the lone starter from the previous year and who set four scoring records. What they forgot was a big and strong transfer student, Bruce Richardson, who at 6’4” (at least) was a dominant inside force. What they forgot was that five members of the squad—John Cuddihee, Don Blair, Joe Reilly, Jim Carlson, and John Davies—were all promising sophomores up from the previous year’s 15-2 freshman squad.
In an electric environment at Somersworth, the Cougars opened the 1971-72 season by shocking the hosts and opening eyes around Class I (D2). They followed it up with a surprising 75-70 home opener against highly regarded Monadnock. The Cougars fought and scrapped in every game against a brutal schedule. They won against teams they shouldn’t have, and their youth cost them in just about as many games.
It came down to the last week of the season, with Conval battling several other schools for the final playoff spot. In a tense game at Newport, the Cougars exhibited both their surprising strength and youthful inexperience by holding off the host Tigers to finish the regular season at 10-10—good for 12th, and the last Class I playoff spot.
The guys that were off the radar and “not supposed to be here” were in the hunt with the rest of the best.
In those days, making the tournament meant going to UNH. All games, from the preliminaries to the finals, were played in Lundholm Gym. It was the mecca of New Hampshire high school basketball, and everyone who went—players, coaches, and fans of all ages—had their own memories of being there. Today, if only…
At practice leading up to the March 24, 1972 first-round game with rival Monadnock, senior Tom Lithgow was all by himself, practicing an unusual shot over and over again. “Hey Smitty, watch this.” And time after time, he practiced falling over the end line while floating up the ball toward the hoop. And time after time, it was swish. Tom said he was practicing making the shot in the final seconds. Wow, he couldn’t miss.
Against Monadnock, the Cougars for more than three quarters displayed their “playing over their heads” skills that did them well during the regular season. Richardson was unstoppable, Boule was on fire, and a host of teammates picked up the slack as Conval—which was wiped off the map by Monadnock in late January, 86-59—found themselves shockingly in front by 10 points early in the fourth quarter.
But the tide turned quickly when Richardson fouled out, and the powerful Huskies all of a sudden had some breathing room inside. Monadnock fought back and took a one-point lead, 62-61 with about a minute to go.
And then what was practice turned into real life.
With the clock ticking away, the Cougars stole the inbounds pass, and who should have the ball—on the baseline, and falling out of bounds—was Tom Lithgow. He shot as he usually did in practice, but this time there was a heck of a lot more pressure on. The crowd from both sides was on their feet. The shot looked good…but missed. “Dang!” he screamed as the horn sounded, looking at me as if we both knew what had happened at practice.
One of the Monadnock cheerleaders complained afterwards that they had to come all the way to Durham again for another game. “Are you kidding me?” replied one of our cheerleaders. “We can’t wait to be back.”
Indeed, the 1972-73 Cougars—and a host of others thereafter—made “can’t wait to be back” a reality. Growing with each game, the young-but-not-as-young team finished at 12-8, and Conval went on to become a force to reckon with in Class I/D2 for the remainder of the ‘70s, and especially in the ‘80s, ’90s and early 2000s.
“I’m pretty proud of this team,” said Coach Ray Richard of the 1971-72 Cougars. “We did a lot better than a number of coaches in the league thought we would. We beat some of the better teams in the state. The boys have represented themselves well.”
Little did Coach Richard know that his words would last for the rest of the 20th century.
The 1971-72 Conval Cougars...Front (from left): Joe Reilly, Don Blair, John Banks, Paul Boule, Kevin Chapman and John Cuddihee. Back: Steve Smith, manager; John Davies, Tom Lithgow, Scott Balfour, Coach Ray Richard, Bruce Richardson, Jim Carlson, Carl Newton and Patrick McDermott, manager.
