Offense erupts in second quarter as Nashua South boys basketball beats Nashua North

NASHUA - Offense has been hard to come by at times for the Nashua High School South boys basketball team.

Friday night against Nashua North was not one of those times.

After a slow start, the Panthers' exploded in the second quarter for 26 points and a 20-point halftime lead, as South cruised to a 66-45 win over North in a Division I game.

Richie Mercado scored 17 of his game-high 20 points in the first half for the Panthers, hitting five 3-pointers, and Alex Amigo added 12 points as South had 10 players score. The Panthers went on a 10-0 run early in the second to break open a six-point game, and after North had cut the lead to nine, they finished the half on an 11-0 run to lead 40-20 at the break.

"We don’t often shoot that well and hopefully we continue to shoot that well," South coach Nate Mazerolle said. "What I asked them to do is play with poise. Atmosphere like this (it ends up like) the first two minutes of the game, turnover, turnover, turnover. That’s natural.

"If you can settle down, and I didn’t know if these team could, so I was very happy that they settled down and executed all the stuff we were working on and got good looks."

South (4-3) also got a strong effort on the defensive end from Sean Holland, who helped hold North's Casey Lane to just nine points, all in the first half.

"The last week and a half, two weeks of practice have been devoted to our defense," Mazerolle said. "Kudos to Sean Holland. We all know what a great quarterback he is. What does it say about his character when he can come in here, he’s not the star, he knows his role, and he is as good a defensive player as there is in the state at shutting the other team’s best player down."

North (1-6) also got seven points from Jakib Yassine and six from Curtis Harris, as the Titans lost a regular-season game to South for the first time since 2015.

"It’s three phases of the game," North coach Steve Lane said. "If we could beat pressure and handle pressure, and attack the scorer, we’d be OK. We didn’t really do that. If we could defend in the quarter court, we’d be OK, and that’d didn’t happen. Their team speed just overpowered us.

"If we could make some shots, we’d stay in it, and I think that was one of our deficiencies as well. I think the kids learned a lot. They learned you’ve got to execute and beat pressure and defend to be effective."

Neither team was effective at the start, as they combined for eight turnovers in the first three minutes of the game. A layup by Amigo broke the scoreless tie 2:16 into the game and the Panthers led 14-9 at the end of the first quarter.

A layup by Harris early in the second made it 17-11 South, but the Titans wouldn't get any closer, as John Champa scored on a three-point play at the other end and Mercado hit back-to-back layups to start the Panthers on a 10-0 run.

North tried to chip away at the lead, going on a 9-2 run, which included a 3 and a basket by Casey Lane, to make it a 29-20 lead for South with 3:17 left in the half. But Mercado answered with a 3 to make it 32-20 moments later and the Panthers ended the half with 3s by Mercado and Holland to lead by 20.

"Richie didn’t want to lose," Mazerolle said. "It’s that catch-22, they all want to shoot and have no fear. We could have missed 10 in a row and it’s a completely different game.

"I told them before the game there is no rah-rah speech coming because I want the opposite. I want them to take a deep breath and relax. They fed off it, but they kept their poise."