Nashua North girls basketball hangs on to beat Nashua South in Nashua Holiday Tournament finale (video)
NASHUA - The biggest key in the game plan for the Nashua High School North girls basketball team had nothing to do with basketball.
The Titans focused on ignoring the fact that Sunday's game was the championship game of a tournament they had yet to win against their biggest rival.
With the game on the line down the stretch, North kept its composure long enough to pull out a 47-45 win over Nashua South in the girls finale of the Nashua Holiday Basketball Tournament at Nashua High School North. It's the first time the Titans have won the tournament, which started in 2022.
Angela King had a game-high 14 points, including four 3-pointers, two of which came in the fourth quarter, while Madelyn Tino had 13 points, as she went 6 of 7 at the free throw line, with two of those coming with 8.1 seconds left on the clock to give the Titans a four-point lead.
“No, not phased at all,” North coach Curt Dutilley said of his team. “We just talked before the game, what’s the one thing you don’t want this game to become? Emotional. Just play a basketball game. Execute your job, and everybody did it. They learned you can overcome mistakes. We made plenty of mistakes and we overcame them.”
Lillian Small was also in double figures with 10 points for North, which withstood a handful of runs by South that appeared to swing momentum. But every time it happened, the Titans had an answer, including in the fourth quarter.
The Panthers used a 13-1 run to take a 41-35 lead, capped by a 3-pointer by Addie Borden in the first minute of the final frame. King answered the 3 on North's next possession and the Titans then held South scoreless for almost six minutes as they chipped away at the lead.
South turned the ball over six times in the game's final five-plus minutes, including three times in the final 1:13 down just two points.
“I think that we didn’t have the mental toughness to win a close game like this,” South coach John Bougeios said. “Credit to North for winning, but I think there were a lot of opportunities that we allowed them to get.”
Anya Challinger came off the bench to lead South with 13 points while Maggie Gallagher and Nicole De Jesus added 10 points apiece.
North came out strong and took a 16-9 lead into the second quarter, but South regrouped an answered with a 13-3 run, taking a 22-19 lead on a 3-pointer by Riya Shroff with 5:04 left before halftime.
The Titans responded by closing the half on an 8-2 run to go up 27-24 at the break, and carried it over into the third quarter, outscoring the Panthers 15-6 over a nine-minute stretch to take a 34-28 lead.
“We had a plan, and once they got comfortable with what we were trying to do, we no longer felt (South’s full-court) press was going to be the problem,” Dutilley said. “It was really going to be were we going to play good defense down at the other end.”
It took the Titans a little while to make that happen, as the Panthers scored 10 straight points to go back in front by four points in the final seconds of the third quarter. But down the stretch, North was able to do the things it needed to to get the win.
“These games are going to ebb and flow and you need to survive when it’s going low for you,” Dutilley said. “We did bounce bac every single time. I think that’s what I’m most happy with.”
