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Panthers make sure Fright Night sequel has better ending

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Feb 16, 2019

Telegraph photo by TOM KING Bishop Guertn's Andrew Arika tries to maneuver around the mid-air defense of Nashua South's Miles Rios during the Panthers' 53-48 win Friday night at the Belanger Gym.

NASHUA – There’s nothing like watching a scary movie a few minutes before you’re playing a high school basketball game against a rival to get you in the mood, right?

Nashua High School South boys coach Nate Mazerolle thought so, so he had his players watch clips from their finals few minutes of a loss earlier this week to Winnacunnet – literally two minutes before the Panthers took the floor for warmups Friday night for their game against Bishop Guertin at the Belanger Gym.

It worked. The Panthers, who blew a late lead in the movie, made sure they didn’t do the same in the real world of a 53-48 win over the Cardinals.

“We learned from our mistakes,” Mazerolle said. “We watched a lot of film, including right before the game. … Here’s what we did wrong, here’s the seven or eight possessions at the end of the game that just killed us. Fright Night all over again.”

The Panthers, who evened their record at 7-7 while sinking Guertin to 5-10, came perilously close but avoided repeating some of those same mistakes. They jumped out to an 8-1, 17-7 first quarter lead, led 32-19 at the end of the first half (after an 8-0 BG run), and staved off the rest of a Cardinal comeback that saw BG claw to within two on Joe Noon’s fourth 3-pointer of the night, 36-34, with 4:18 left in the third.

“They caught fire,” Mazerolle said. “We didn’t defend the 3-point line as well as I would have liked, but when a kid catches fire, even when you do defend it well, they somehow go in.”

Noon finished with 15 along with fellow Cardinal Andrew Arika. But it took them and the other Cards a while to get going, which frustrated the heck out of BG coach Matt Regan.

“I thought from three minutes on in the second quarter to the end of the game we dominated the game,” Regan said. “But this has been the story. Either we start off well and finish weak, or we start off poorly and finish strong.”

South, which had a whopping nine players in the scoring column led by Andres Hulfachor’s 11 points and 10 by Jaden Murphy, recovered to lead 43-35 entering the final quarter. Yet there were the Cards, closing to 49-46 with 49.2 seconds left after two free throws by Kyle Baker.

But this time South held on by hitting four of six free throws down the stretch, using the clock well and not turning the ball over.

“We worked a lot on our defenses,” Hulfachor said. “They hit a bunch of 3s in the game, but we shut them down at the end when it mattered.”

What did Mazerolle tell his team when Guertin got close in the third, and down the stretch?

“Play the defense we didn’t play Monday night,” Mazerolle said. “And we settled it down.”

For the Cards, it was a tough loss as they are still scrambling for one or two more wins to secure a Division I tourney berth.

Regan got a good game from JV callup Nick Tedesco (two big 3s) as well, but as he said, it’s tough to know who is going to be on. “It’s not a recipe for success,” he said. “I think it’s going to take six, maybe seven (wins). But we save the toughest teams (Winnacunnet, Exeter, Portsmouth, yikes) for last, but you make your bed, you’ve got to sleep in it, right?”

Meanwhile, the Panthers can sleep after they went from a scary movie to a happy ending. The only thing we don’t know is whether or not Mazerolle supplied the popcorn.

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