Nashua North boys basketball overcomes slow start to end with win over Merrimack (video)

NASHUA - The venue and the crowd may have been different Tuesday, but the Nashua High School North boys basketball team ended its season with the same energy and intensity as it did a year ago.

Then, it was at the University of New Hampshire's Lundholm Gymnasium, as the Titans fell to Pinkerton in the program's first Division I title-game appearance.

Now, it was a regular-season finale against Merrimack, with North knowing there was no chance of a win getting it into the postseason. Despite that, the Titans rallied from an early deficit to hand the playoff-bound Tomahawks a 64-55 setback in the final D1 game for both teams.

For Merrimack (8-10), there will be a playoff game on March 5, on the road against an opponent for be determined.

For North (5-13), it was an end to a season in which the Titans just couldn't get things going their way.

"It was really emotional just because of the year we had," North senior Robinson Rodriguez said. "This wasn’t the year we all wanted, missing playoffs. I was just leaving everything I had left, just a little bit of juice left on the court. It felt great."

Rodriguez did his part for North, scoring a game-high 23 points, including three 3-pointers, and fellow senior Alize Roig-Cortes added 22 points, with two 3s and a 4 for 4 performance from the free throw line.

The Titans trailed 13-0 with three minutes remaining in the first quarter, but Roig-Cortes and Rodriguez scored 11 straight points for North to end the quarter. They kept it going in the second quarter, making it a 22-8 run and taking the lead for good on a jumper by Roig-Cortes midway through the frame.

"Give the kids credit, being down 13-0, it did not look good," North coach Steve Lane said. "The spark for us was Lewis Mazerolle, going in and banging bodies, picking up two quick fouls, diving on the floor. He gave us the energy that we needed.

"They stuck with it. Not a lot of teams that are 4-13 are going to put that kind of effort in on their final game of the year."

Merrimack got 17 points apiece from Nate Johnson and Noah Morrison, but no one else had more than five points for the Tomahawks. The duo hit a pair of 3s, and Johnson had a three-point play, to help them build the lead, but the Tomahawks couldn't maintain it.

"We started the game off (well) and then we decided we were just going to jack up 3s," Merrimack coach Austin Denton said. "When you jack up 3s and they don’t go in, you should just try to bury the team right away, and instead, they came out and got confident."

A 3 by Robinson with about 30 seconds left in the half gave North a 29-21 lead, but Ryan Elliott scored in the final seconds to make it a six-point game at the break. Henry Tobin scored to start the third quarter to get Merrimack within four, but a 12-3 run by North gave the Titans a 47-32 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Denton emptied the bench with about three minutes to play and Merrimack's second string was able to cut into the lead with a trio of 3-pointers, but by then, it was too late.

"We weren’t going to let up down 13-0," Rodriguez said. "This was our last game, we just had to leave it all on the court."