Exeter girls basketball finishes strong to beat Nashua South in D1 quarterfinal (video)

NASHUA - Kaylene Rogers felt like the Exeter High School girls basketball team had a bit of a size advantage going into Friday's matchup with Nashua South.

It took awhile for the Blue Hawks to use it, but when they did, it swung the game.

Jessica Melick was able to get going inside the paint late in the third quarter to help No. 5 Exeter go on a momentum-changing run and the Blue Hawks shut down No. 4 South's offense in the final quarter to get a 35-27 win in the Division I quarterfinals.

Exeter moves on to face No. 1 Concord Christian in the semifinals at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Portsmouth High School. It's the Blue Hawks first trip to the final four since 2004, when they made their only title-game appearance.

“We came out in the second half and just broke the game open,” Rogers said. “We took advantage of our height, which is Jess, and I think we really made a team effort to make it all work together. They’ve really developed some team chemistry and they work hard on the defensive end. I’m just really proud of them. We haven’t been to the final four in a long time.”

Melick finished with a team-high 13 points, including a personal 8-0 in the final three minutes of the third quarter that turned a 22-18 deficit into a four-point lead going into the fourth. Then to open the scoring in the fourth, Nicole Melick, Jessica's sister, hit a deep 3-pointer that gave Exeter a 29-22 lead.

“That was incredible,” said Exeter junior Lexy Rogers, the coach’s daughter. “When she hit that 3, I think it was really eye-opening to us. We have the lead in this game, we’re not going to give this up.”

Lexy Rogers added 10 points for the Blue Hawks (15-5) and Nicole Melick finished with eight points, as Exeter outscored South 13-5 over the game's final 11 minutes in the first meeting between the two teams in over two years.

“We knew they were going to be quick,” Kaylene Rogers said. “We knew they were going to be really aggressive on defense. We knew they had some good shooters and they could drive. Our job was that we were just going to play our defense as much as we could and see w ho could come out at the end.”

Nicole De Jesus led South (16-4) with 14 points, including all nine of the Panthers' points in the first quarter, and Maggie Gallagher scored 12 points, going 8 for 8 at the free throw line. But only one other player scored for South and the Panthers managed just one 3-pointer, by De Jesus in the first.

“They started face-guarding some of our top players,” South coach John Bourgeois said. “That got us out of our offense for a little bit, but we have plans against that. In a big playoff game, it’s tough to execute sometimes. And credit to Exeter for doing a great job coming out of the second half with a solid game plan to take those players away.”

South controlled the early part of the game, forcing Exeter into turnovers and taking a 9-4 lead midway through the first quarter. But the Blue Hawks responded with a 6-0 run to end the frame and go up 10-9 after one.

Gallagher hit a pair of free throws to start the second and Jessica Melick answered with a jump shot for a 12-11 Exeter lead. But those would be the final points of the half for the Blue Hawks, as they went scoreless for more than seven minutes and the Panthers took an 18-12 lead into the break.

Lexy Rogers scored twice to start the third quarter to cut the lead to two points, but Gallagher pushed it back to four with two more free throws. Mya Dinneen and Gallagher traded baskets to make it 22-18 South with 3:49 left in the third, but the Panthers would score just five points the rest of the way and had just one field goal.

“We know (De Jesus) loves to drive and (Gallagher) is a beast inside,” Lexy Rogers said. “We were really like, if we shut down that game, if we shut down the paint, we can play their outside guards just as well.

“We communicated and I think our defense contributed to our offense. And when we worked hard on defense, then we got those offensive opportunities that then led us to get up on the scoreboard.”