×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

Titans go cold down the stretch in 44-35 loss

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Dec 12, 2018

Staff photo by TOM KING Nashua North's Jaden Smith goes up for a shot against the reach of Portsmouth's Katey McCafferty during the Clippers' 44-35 win Tuesday night in the season opener for both in Nashua.

NASHUA – There’s a lot of basketball left to be played.

That was the message Nashua High School North girls coach Christina Bean gave to her team after the Titans fell victim to a game-ending 9-0 run in a 44-35 season opening loss at the hands of Portsmouth.

“There’s lots of good things to build off of,” Bean said. “It was a little choppy, the shooting wasn’t great, but those are things we can fix. They put in the effort, we’re excited for the rest of the season.

“We’ve got more.”

The Titans must be anxious to get back on the court as soon as possible, because they had the momentum after Bianca Gershgorin’s 3-pointer tied things at 35 with exactly three minutes left.

But that was it. The Clippers’ leading scorer, junior forward Corinne Lamond, hit a five-footer some 42 seconds later and Portsmouth was on its way to a successful start to its return to Division I.

“Ragged was kind of what it was, which is expected with the first game of the year,” Portsmouth coach Tim Hopley said. “But we’ll take it.”

The 6-1 Lamond led all scorers with 13 points, off-setting a 12-point effort by North’s Ariana Motivala. Motivala’s 3-pointer gave the Titans a 23-15 lead a minute into the second half, but Portsmouth went on a 14-0 run and led 29-27 going into the fourth quarter.“They kind of went into their zone and our girls froze,” Bean said.

Motivala had another 3-pointer left in her which gave the Titans a 32-31 lead with 6:27 left in the game. But that was North’s last advantage.

Meanwhile, when they needed a hoop, the Clippers, especially guard Ariana Hebert (10 points) and small forward Reilly Velez (eight) were able to drive the lane.

“Our upper class senior guards did a good job, which was big,” Hopley said. “The other big thing was we rebounded the ball, which we didn’t do in the first half (a 16-15 North lead), and we hit some free throws, which has always been our problem.”

Hebert scored five straight points, two on a steal and layup that made it 39-35 and the rest on a traditional three-point play with 49.4 seconds left that gave Portsmouth a 41-35 lead.

North got six points each from Katie Carr and Jaden Smith. But the Titans got only two missed shots off in the final minute, and Lamond had two blocks.

“We made a couple key turnovers, that was tough, and couldn’t get a stop on defense,” Bean said. “And at the end of the game, they just kind of froze us with their zone. Our shots weren’t falling.”

But as Bean said, there’s plenty of time for that to change.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *