Merrimack girls basketball starts fast, beats Nashua South to win Chick-Fil-A Holiday Tournament title (video)

NASHUA - The Merrimack High School girls basketball team has shown it can score points off its press and when getting out in transition.

From the start of Saturday's game against Nashua South, the Tomahawks were determined to show they could score as quickly and as often as they wanted no matter how fast the tempo.

Merrimack stormed out of the gate against the Panthers, getting out to an 18-2 lead in the first quarter and the Tomahawks never looked back in a 56-30 win over South in the championship game of the Chick-Fil-A Holiday Tournament. The tournament title is the second in three years for Merrimack.

Theresa Twardosky led the Tomahawks with 11 points, including three 3-pointers, two of which opened the scoring to put Merrimack up early. Riley Crampton added nine points while Shannon Sadhwani had seven and Gillian Waller chipped in with six as 10 players scored for the Tomahawks.

"That was by far the best first half of execution that I’ve seen them come together with so far this season," Merrimack coach Mike Soucy said. "It was unbelievable. Defensively we were solid across the board and offensively, we actually executed our halfcourt offense. First time all year. They played so hard."

Every time South looked like it might gain momentum, Merrimack had an answer. The Panthers scored the first three points of the second quarter, but the Tomahawks rattled off the next eight.

A basket by Bailey Morin for South stopped Merrimack's run, but Crampton answered it right away with a 3-pointer that made it 29-7.  Merrimack led 38-9 at halftime.

"The most impressive thing for me was, we knew we could score when we turn people over and we press and we do all those things," Soucy said. "We knew that could happen for us. What I was impressed with was that we actually executed our halfcourt offense and we were able to score in our halfcourt offense.

"We’re going to score in transition, we’re going to score off our press, can we score against a solid defensive team in the halfcourt. That’s going to make or break our season, and (Saturday) we showed that we can."

Down 48-14 after three quarters, South was able to outscore Merrimack 16-8 in the fourth, but the Tomahawks were in control the whole way to wrap up the tournament win.

Morin finished with six points to lead the Panthers, while Kirsten McIntire, Julianna Martin and Iruka Obinelo each added five points.