Nashua South girls lacrosse breaks open close game, rolls past Nashua North (video)

NASHUA - While the Nashua High School South girls lacrosse team prepared for the second half of Thursday's game against Nashua North, Panthers coach Ciki McIntire reminded the team of the past.

Last year, the Panthers trailed at halftime in both games against the Titans, only to come back in the second half to win.

Now, South had a three-goal lead of its own that the break, and McIntire stressed to the Panthers to not let up.

South never did, and after scoring three goals in the final two minutes of the first half, the Panthers got four more in the first five minutes of the half and never looked back on the way to an 18-9 win over North at Stellos Stadium.

"We talked about how last year were down at halftime in both games, and we got fired up," McIntire said. "I said you can expect the same thing from them. Do not take that foot off the gas. We know what they’re capable of, they keep fighting at the end."

The Panthers (4-6) got a big second half from Liz Harrington, as she had all five of her goals and two assists after halftime, while Kirsten McIntire added five goals and an assist. Laura Galvez scored four goals for South while Emily Colburn and Calley Goulet each had two goals.

Sarah Signorello added two assists and Izzy Bolduc and Tara Saliany also had an assist each while Abbey Rowe played well in goal.

"We just keep preaching to them that when they play together as a team, they are really unbeatable," Ciki McIntire said. "They beat themselves when they don’t play together. I think nerves had a lot to do with it at the very beginning. It’s always such a tight game and they finally settled into what they wanted to do and connected with each other."

It was a 4-4 game late in the first half when Galvez broke the tie with 1:58 left in the half, and then made it a two-goal game just 55 seconds later. Kirsten McIntire tacked on another goal 13 seconds after that to make it 7-4 South at the break.

"We had a few yellow cards, and every time we had a yellow card, they scored two or three goals," North coach Chloe Audesse said. "That definitely did it. When you have two against one, they’re going to score.

"They were faster than us in general, so when we were at the same amount, that’s even challenging. To be one down, they’re capitalizing. Between the yellow cards and our own turnovers, I’d say they played great and we didn’t play how we play."

Campbell Haller led North (4-6) with five goals and Danielle Upton had two goals while Julia Gagnon and Kaylee Hubbard had a goal apiece.

The two teams will play again to end the regular season on May 25.