Merrimack girls basketball finishes strong to close out win over Nashua South

NASHUA – If you want to be an elite team, closing out tight games is a necessity.

The Merrimack High School girls basketball team passed that test with flying colors on Tuesday evening, as the Tomahawks were even at 35-35 with Nashua South at the end of three, but the visitors won the fourth, 11-4, during a crucial 46-39 road win against a resilient Panthers’ team.

Merrimack (6-3) was led by sophomore point guard Theresa Twardosky, who poured in a game-high 16 points, as she scored nine straight points, all of which came off 3-pointers, for the Tomahawks during a critical stretch at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth. Junior guard Riley Crampton dropped 10 of her 15 points in the first half for the Tomahawks.

The offensive numbers were impressive, but defense is what ultimately decides games, and the Tomahawks were in lockdown mode during the fourth quarter, making every possession a grind for the Panthers with on-ball pressure and solid help defense on drives into the lane.

“We do a good job with our initial defensive pressure,” said Merrimack coach Courtney Cheetham. “We make sure that they are taking contested shots, but we have to make sure we are getting the rebounds on those contested shots. In the fourth quarter, we showed that we wanted the ball more and sometimes it comes down to that.”

The Panthers (2-6) have nothing to hang their heads about, as the effort was there throughout the contest. South held the lead in the second, third and fourth quarters.

Junior forward Catherine Covert led the way with nine points, while sophomore forward and center Iruka Obinelo posted eight points and did an outstanding job on the boards on offense and defense, generating numerous second-chance opportunities and hustling for loose balls all night. Junior center Kirsten McIntire finished with an eight-point effort for the hosts.

Merrimack came out of the gates strong, as Crampton grabbed two consecutive offensive rebounds and finished up a scrappy layup with four minutes left in the first, giving the unit an 8-2 edge.

South coach Doug Booth called a timeout with 3:54 left in the opening frame, and his group responded. Obinelo did it all in the final minute, stealing the ball on one end, and then converting a layup on the other end with 15 seconds left, cutting Merrimack’s lead down to 12-11 at the end of one.

Panthers sophomore Aryanna Murray tallied an old-fashioned three-point play off an inbounds pass with 4:29 on the clock in the second, which was the finishing touch on a 14-4 spurt and gave South an 18-14 lead.

“It was an evenly-matched game,” Booth said. “We played really good defense. Both teams made some adjustments. We tried to work the post and near the end we tried a couple of 3s. We played hard for four quarters.”

Merrimack fired back with an 11-0 spurt during the stretch run of the second quarter, featuring an old-fashioned three-point play by Twardosky, with a great fake pass during a 2-on-1 break. The run ended on a layup by Crampton, pushing the lead up to 25-18, and the visitors took a 25-20 advantage into halftime.

“What I love about Riley Crampton is that she always brings it on the defensive end and she is starting to look for her offense,” Cheetham said. “(Tuesday) she used her defense to create offense, which is not always the case, so I am really proud of her for that.”

South kept coming in the second half, winning the third, 15-10, and during that push, a second-chance layup by Obinelo gave the squad a 33-29 lead with two minutes left. Obinelo gave the hosts the lead at 37-35 on a layup 30 seconds into the fourth, which was the Panthers last lead of the game.

“I am very proud of the fight in my team (Tuesday),” Booth said. “That is one of the things that we talked about in our pregame talk. We talked about not only fighting, but also the team and that we needed to trust in each other. They really did that with the way our defense played the entire night. Obinelo and Covert did a great job on the boards all night long. They really hustled and moved people out so they could get position.”

Twardosky continues to excel in the clutch for Merrimack, as she cashed in on a left-baseline three-ball with 55 seconds left in the third, and then buried a right-baseline trey with five seconds showing, which evened the game at 35-35 heading into the fourth. The 5-foot-7 floor general put the Tomahawks in the lead for good on a left-wing 3 with 7:02 left in the fourth.

“Theresa is a solid player who is coming into her own,” Cheetham said. “She hit big shots when we needed her to, and it was a good momentum booster for us to get back in it during that fourth quarter.”

Crampton converted on two layups in the final minute, extending the visitors’ lead to 46-37, as Merrimack held South scoreless for a span of over six minutes in the final frame.

Merrimack and South will be back in action on Friday, as the Tomahawks will host Concord at 7 p.m. and the Panthers will pack their bags for a 6:30 p.m. showdown at Goffstown.