Bedford boys basketball beats Nashua South for its ninth straight win

BEDFORD - Mark Elmendorf was well aware of what kind of team his Bedford High School boys basketball team would be up against Monday night.

Elmendorf implored the Bulldogs to get off to a fast start against Nashua South, a team that had lost six of its last seven, four of them by an average of 3.3 points.

Bedford did what its coach wanted, getting out to a comfortable lead in the first half and holding off every run the Panthers had in the second half, as the Bulldogs won their ninth in a row, 60-46, in a Division I game.

Nolan Anderson led the way for Bedford (9-2) with 20 points, while Liam O'Connell added 16 points, 10 of which came in the first half, and Max Chartier scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half.

"They’re way better than their record indicated, I thought," Elmendorf said. "We talked a lot about energy. We came out on fire and that helped.

"We started off good and then our shot selection went a little bad in the second quarter. In the third quarter, we got it back, and then I thought it was OK."

Richie Mercado led South (4-7) with 19 points, including three 3-pointers in the second half, but no one else was in double figures. Tony Agor added seven points and Ivan Nyantenji had six.

The Panthers struggled early on offense, turning the ball over on their first two possessions and missing a handful of layups in the first quarter.

"We always play with effort, I don’t doubt that," South coach Nate Mazerolle said. "When you turn it over 25 times, you’re not going to win. We were 9 for 10 at the line. We’re never 9 for 10 from the line. We were 5 of 19 from 3 … and (Bedford) is very good. They’re fundamentally sound, they’re smart, they can all pass, they can all shoot. They’re a good basketball team."

A 3-pointer by O'Connell midway through the first quarter gave Bedford an 11-4 lead, and after South got back within four points, 12-8, the Bulldogs scored seven straight, including another 3 by O'Connell, to go up 19-8.

The Panthers kept it close throughout the second quarter and trailed by seven, 28-21, at halftime. But Bedford switched up its defense at halftime, going to a zone, and South struggled to adjust in the second half.

"I thought we exploited them in the first half when we spread them out," Mazerolle said. "We got to the rim a couple of times and didn’t finish well. Their bigs do a nice job of closing and stopping the drive to the rim. They went to a zone in the second half and we struggled with that."

The Bulldogs led by double digits for most of the third, and in the final minute of the quarter, another 3 by O'Connell and a last-second basket by Anderson put Bedford up 46-31 going into the fourth. Chartier scored early in the final quarter to make it a 17-point lead for the Bulldogs when South went on a run.

John Champa hit a 3 for the Panthers and Mercado hit two more during a 13-4 run that cut Bedford's lead to 52-44 with 2:39 remaining.

South started fouling with two minutes to play and the Bulldogs went 8 of 11 from the line - including 5 of 6 by Chartier - down the stretch to put the game away.