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# Big 4th quarter helps Nashua South boys basketball hand Portsmouth its 1st loss
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/big-4th-quarter-helps-nashua-south-boys-basketball-hand-portsmouth-its-1st-loss/
- Published: 2025-01-25T17:30:31.000Z
- Updated: 2025-01-25T17:30:31.000Z
- Description: NASHUA - Nate Mazerolle stood in the huddle with his Nashua High School South boys basketball team before Friday night's fourth quarter against Portsmouth and heard his senior captain say something they were all thinking. "We're not losing this game," the coach recalled Josh Caruso saying, and while
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division I, boys basketball, Nashua South, Portsmouth, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

NASHUA - Nate Mazerolle stood in the huddle with his Nashua High School South boys basketball team before Friday night's fourth quarter against Portsmouth and heard his senior captain say something they were all thinking.

"We're not losing this game," the coach recalled Josh Caruso saying, and while the sentiment was shared, the way it was delivered set the tone. Over the final eight minutes of the game, Caruso and his teammates made sure to make the statement fact.

Caruso had 20 of his game-high 40 points in the fourth quarter and South's defense held Portsmouth scoreless for more than five minutes as the Panthers came back in the second half for a 71-56 victory in a Division I game.

The loss is the first of the season for the Clippers (9-1 in D1) while it was just the second win at home, and in as many games, of the year for the Panthers (7-3).

"Winning here, where we’ve struggled here, it’s nice to get two wins in a row," Mazerolle said. "Signature win on the season, certainly. That’s a very, very good basketball team who will play late into March.

"The tone, the look in his eyes, and (Caruso) meant it. It wasn’t ‘give me the ball, I’m going to take over,’ which he did. That’s not how Josh operates. If he has zero points and we win, he’ll be as happy as anybody."

Caruso had 20 of South's 25 points in the fourth quarter and scored 30 in the second half. Daniel Karavanic was also in double figures with 10 points, including a 3-pointer early in the fourth with the Panthers up by just two points.

Josh Tripp added eight points and Francisco Rodriguez had seven markers while Link Vanderhorst and Colvin Levesque played solid defensively in the second half.

"The seven or eight guys who played (Friday), guys are figuring out what their roles are," Mazerolle said. "Second half, I was very impressed both sides of the floor."

South led for most of the first half until Portsmouth went on a 14-4 run to take a 31-28 lead going into the break.

Isaiah Reis led the way for the Clippers with 32 points, 16 in each half, and Derek Swartz added 13 points. But no one else had more than five points, and at times, Portsmouth struggled with turnovers, including the scoreless stretch in the fourth quarter.

"We weren’t even getting shots up on a lot of those possessions because we were turning the ball over," Portsmouth coach John Mulvey said. "They made it hard on us, but we’ve got to be able to move the ball ourselves and get better shot opportunities."

Portsmouth had a 35-30 lead early in the third quarter, but a basket by Karavanic and a 3-pointer by Caruso tied the game at 35\. The Clippers went back in front, 38-35, but the Panthers responded with an 11-3 run over the final three-plus minutes to go up 46-41 heading into the fourth.

A three-point play by Swartz made it 51-49 South with 6:35 to play, but by the time the Clippers scored again, they were down by 17 points with under 90 seconds remaining.

"We felt like we were stuck on 49 (points) for about an hour," Mulvey said. "Credit to them, they did a great job on defense."

That side of the ball has been a focal point for the Panthers this season - they had allowed an average of 65.3 points going into Friday - and Mazerolle hopes this performance will put them in the right direction.

"We talk all the time about our defense and the phrase we use is legacy defense," he said. "This program has prided itself for years on our man-to-man defense, and we haven’t lived up to it the last couple of years.

"Frankly, we haven’t lived up to it this year. A stretch like that, against a team as good as that, I think we’ll have to rethink our defensive criticism, at least for the moment."