Nashua South boys basketball comes back in 4th quarter to beat Pinkerton

DERRY - The Nashua High School South boys basketball team spent stretches of Monday night's game against Pinkerton Academy trying to get the lead.

When the Panthers finally took it, and looked like they were going to keep control, the Astros did everything they could to get it back. It almost worked.

Pinkerton made five 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to keep the pressure on South down the stretch, but the Panthers were up to the task, going 13 of 15 at the free throw line in the final frame to take an 81-75 win over the Astros in a Division I game at the Hackler Gymnasium.

"This is a very tough place to win," South coach Nate Mazerolle said. "We need to work on our defense, but we made enough plays to, I don’t want to say steal one, because we almost had it stolen from us. When they’re making 3s from 31 feet and banking one in from the corner, you’re thinking this is not meant to be. (South) didn’t get rattled."

The Panthers (2-0) could have, on a night where the Astros defensive game plan started with doing anything to take South senior Josh Caruso out on the offensive end. He finished with 16 points, but had just two during a 19-minute stretch from late in the first quarter until the fourth.

Daniel Karavanic and Josh Tripp stepped up for the Panthers, scoring 29 and 24 points, respectively. Karavanic hit a pair of 3s, including one in the final seconds of the third quarter, and the pair combined to go 15 of 18 at the line, part of a 25-for-29 free throw shooting performance for South.

"They were double teaming (Caruso) and we kept talking about making the right play," Mazerolle said. "The right play was the slip to the basket and Daniel Karavanic and Josh Tripp just combined for 50-something. The fact those two stepped up so well, what’s nice is, that puts everyone else on notice. Go ahead, double Josh Caruso, we’ve got other guys."

Shane Lemire also scored eight points for the Panthers, who got valuable minutes from Linc Vanderhorst off the bench as well.

Brady Sullivan led Pinkerton (1-1) with 25 points while Wilson Youssef and Ryan Bonilla added 18 and 16 points, respectively. The trio combined for all seven of the Astros' 3-pointers and found ways to step up with South's defense focused on Cristian Brander (two points).

"They guarded Christian Brander close again (Monday) and teams are going to do that," Pinkerton coach Mike Dunham said. "They’re going to try to take him away. I thought they competed every second. They played hard."

Dunham was also impressed with the defensive effort of Connor Dempsey, who guarded Caruso for most of the night.

"Josh Caruso is one of the best players in the state and he showed that (Monday)," the coach said. "Our defense was predicated toward him but they had other guys step up and get easy buckets. I thought my guys worked really hard.

"You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him. I think Connor Dempsey did a phenomenal job on him all night."

Caruso had seven points in the game's first five minutes and South led 13-8 early, but he wouldn't score again in the first half and Pinkerton was able to tie the game at 17 at the end of one.

A 12-1 run to open the second quarter gave the Astros their biggest lead of the night, 29-18, but South spent the rest of the half chipping away, outscoring Pinkerton 14-6 to cut the lead to 35-32 at halftime.

Four quick points to open the third briefly gave South a 36-35 lead, but Sullivan answered to put Pinkerton back on top. The Astros held on to the lead for the rest of the quarter, going up as many as seven, but a basket by Tripp and a 3 from Karavanic in the final 70 seconds made it a two-point game again going into the fourth.

A three-point play by Karavanic gave South a 59-57 lead with 6:02 to play, but Sullivan answered again with a 3 to put Pinkerton back ahead. Tripp responded at the other end, giving the Panthers the lead for good and South extended its advantage to 67-61 with 3:41 to go.

But the Astros weren't done. Youssef answered with a 3 to cut the lead in half, and after the Panthers went back up by six again, the junior hit another 3 to make it 70-67 South with 1:48 to go.

Another three-point play by Karavanic with 53.5 seconds left made it a six-point game again, 75-69, but again Youssef hit a 3. Two free throws by Tripp with 35.8 to go made it 77-72, but with 13 seconds left, Bonilla made a 3 to make it a two-point game.

But this time, South was able to close it out, as Caruso hit a pair of free throws and Lemire scored at the buzzer to seal the win.

"The game is over and then it isn’t," Mazerolle said. "They came into the timeouts and said ‘hey, and move on to the next play.’ Our mantra this year is present tense. They stayed in the moment."