By Roger Brown
MaxPreps.com
Plenty of New Hampshire high school basketball players have passed the 1,000-point mark during their high school careers, but not many have done it as quickly as Exeter's Jon Pike.
Pike, a 6-4 forward, joined the 1,000-point club during the second game of his senior season, when he tossed in 32 points during a 66-63 Class L victory over Dover last month.
Pike, 17, entered the contest with 993 points during his two-plus seasons with the Blue Hawks. That total does not include the 301 points he scored during his freshman season at Bangor (Maine) Christian Academy. He reached the milestone when he made a jump shot with 1:28 left in the first quarter.
"It's a great accomplishment - and he's done it within a team concept," Exeter coach Jeff Holmes said. "Not many people can block his shot, and he can score from inside our outside."
Pike became the program's first 1,000-point scorer since Jason Como in 1998. Como began his high school career at Epping, but transferred to Exeter before his junior season.
Pike averaged 18.4 points per game as a sophomore, and 24.4 points per game last season.
Basketball: Central Sweeps
Perhaps no high school had a more successful holiday season than Manchester Central, which won both halves of the Queen City Invitational basketball tournament on Dec. 28.
Central's boys basketball team won its fourth-consecutive tournament title by beating host Manchester Memorial 70-65, and the Central girls won their title by knocking off Nashua South 53-48 in the championship game.
Central's Bill Statires scored a game-high 18 points in the victory over Memorial, but senior Will Brooks was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player. Brooks had eight points, nine rebounds and three steals in the championship game.
It was Central's 22nd championship in the tournament's 44-year history and improved the team's overall record to 5-0.
Central's Alicia Doucet was selected as the MVP in the girls portion of the tournament. Doucet scored 22 points in the victory over Nashua South, and 55 in her team's three tournament games.
Nashua South led 31-20 late in the first half, but Central took control with a 23-6 run over a 10-minute span that gave the Little Green a 43-35 lead. The victory pushed Central's record to 7-0.
It was the first time the Central girls have won the tournament title since 2003.
Wrestling: Concord Dominates on the Mat
Expectations for Concord High School may have been raised following last weekend's Lowell (Mass.) Holiday Wrestling Tournament, an event that featured 50 teams from throughout New England.
Concord finished first with 218« points, nipping Timberlane - a program that has won each of the past seven New Hampshire state titles - by 1« points. Lowell was third with 208« points, and St. Johns Prep of Danvers, Mass., finished fourth with 143.
Tyler Saltsman prevailed in the 130-pound weight class and was Concord's only individual champion, but the Crimson Tide had seven others finish in the top five: Alex Buessing (second at 135), Harry Paul (second at 160), Pat Boyle (second at 171), Dan Breen (third at 103), Levi Byers (third at 189), Brandon Paige (fourth at 119) and Marshall Gleason (fifth at 215).
Timberlane, which has won the last two New England championships, had won the previous three Lowell Holiday Wrestling Tournaments. Nine New Hampshire teams competed in the event.