Pinkerton boys basketball moves on to D1 semis with win over Nashua South (video)

DERRY - The Pinkerton Academy boys basketball team had more than a week off before its first playoff game.

There were some nerves and some rust for the Astros to knock off early Saturday against Nashua South, but once they did ... well Panthers coach Nate Mazerolle put it best, calling Pinkerton "a complete basketball team who just happen to have an unstoppable force."

That force would be Jackson Marshall, who scored 41 points and topped the 2,000-point plateau for his career in the the fourth quarter, while helping the No. 1 Astros to a 101-83 win over the No. 8 Panthers in the Division I quarterfinals.

The win sends Pinkerton to the semifinals, where it will face No. 5 Trinity, which knocked off No. 4 Exeter 78-65 in the quarterfinals. The game is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at a site still to be determined.

Pinkerton (18-1) also got 21 points from Charles Ludden and 18 points from Andrew Brander. Parker Bienvenue-Cernuda and Cristian Brander each added eight points as the Astros scored in triple digits for the second straight game.

"We definitely came out with some butterflies," Pinkerton coach Mike Dunham said. "Kudos to Nashua South, they’re just a great team. They played a lot of zone against us.

"We had Jackson on the baseline a lot in the beginning and we kind of put him in the middle of the zone. That way he could get the ball and create a little more. Just trying to figure out their zone more."

That zone helped South (12-8) take the lead at the end of the first quarter, but Pinkerton stormed back in the second, taking a 42-38 lead into halftime.

The Panthers scored to open the second half to make it a two-point game, but the Astros went on a 12-5 run to go up 54-45 and force Mazerolle to take a timeout with 4:54 left in the third.

"We tried a couple of different defenses, none of them worked," Mazerolle said. "We knew all year long defense wasn’t our strength. Most teams we think we can outscore. To score 83 and lose by 18 points ...

"We were worried it would a barrage of 3s. Offensively, if we didn’t have something in transition, we needed longer possessions. We just didn’t execute well enough, long enough, to sustain any momentum. That was the plan. It didn’t work."

South's Daniel Karavanic scored out of the timeout, but Pinkerton responded with a 10-0 run to take a 64-47 lead. The teams were even the rest of the quarter and the Astros took a 74-57 lead into the fourth.

"I think our defense in the second half got us going," Dunham said of what was different after halftime. "And we started scoring more. Once you see the ball go in a little bit. Running, trying to push the tempo a little bit on them. Just seeing the ball go in the rim motivates us a little more."

A 3-pointer by Marshall with 3:50 to play got the senior over the 2,000-point mark and he added a dunk moments later for good measure. The Pinkerton lead grew to as many as 26 points before South closed the gap late.

South got 33 points from Josh Caruso, as the junior hit seven 3-pointers, and Zac Castonguay added 21 points, with three 3s. But the only other Panther with more than six points was Naveenkumar Ravindran, who had all 11 of his points, including three 3s, in the final three minutes.

"Their surrounding guys are getting better," Dunham said. "We watched their (first-round) game against Portsmouth and those guys are playing well. Josh Caruso is probably one of the best players we’ve seen all year, him and (Bedford's) Luke Soden.

"He’s such a great player, you have to keep tabs on him the whole time. And same with their point guard, Castonguay. He’s a great player. They were a handful for us."