Nashua South's Iruka Obinelo blocks a shot by Nashua North's Lilly Brooks during the Panthers' 19-16 win Saturday at Titans Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – There’s something about a game with Nashua High School North that brings the best out of Nashua South’s Julianna Martin.

Martin’s two jump shots late in the third quarter opened up a four-point lead for the Panthers in a 19-16 win over the Titans on Saturday afternoon.

Yes, you read correctly in terms of that final score, as both team were offensively challenged. Martin, for the second straight North-South meeting, led the Panthers in scoring with 11 points. She had 16 in last year’s 40-37 South win.

“I’m usually a facilitator, I normally look for the wide open passes, I normally don’t take the shots,” Martin said. “But since they were open, I took them today.”

Why was this so low scoring?

“I think it’s because it’s a rivalry game, everybody’s nerves were up and not everything was falling for both teams,” Martin said. “We were both being very competitive, so with two competitive teams, it’s hard to get points in the board.”

The frustration was clear with North coach Curt Dutilley, whose team fell to 1-6 and was led by just four points each by Victoria Conrad and Lilly Brooks. A 3-point game-tying attempt by Kaitlyn Laurendi in the final seconds was off the mark.

“The ball’s just not going in,” Dutilley said. “We had the same problem (Friday vs. Merimack). Once that starts to get on your mind, you have to work through it. There’s literally nothing else to the game. You give up 19 points, you should win. “We played an incredible defensive game. They have more accomplished scorers than us, and we held them exactly as we would want to. And we literally couldn’t put the ball in the hole. Nothing else.”

Actually, neither team could. It’s just that the Panthers had a senior like Martin to take things into her own hands during the third quarter, when she scored nine. Her consecutive jumpers snapped a 13-all tie and gave South (2-1) a 17-13 lead that it never lost.

“It wasn’t pretty,” South coach John Bourgeois said. “But it kind of looks like what happened last year with Julianna. She hit some big shots in some big moments, and that’s what we’re looking for from our senior captains.

“Really proud of her progress. Again, it’s only been a week, but we’ll take a win like this.”

Bourgeois also said the North-South factor led to the ragged offensive play, as both teams were extremely aggressive defensively. South’s Liz DeRusha and Maya Rioux were next under Martin with, uh, three points each.

“You never know in a rivalry game what’s going to happen,” Bourgeois said. “But yes, it’s been quite difficult to work on things in practice when you have not many of them. We’re just happy to get in a game and yes, it’s always going to be like that in a rivalry game.”

We’ll see if that holds true when the teams play in a scheduled rematch at South’s Belanger Gym next Saturday afternoon. Yesterday it was 3-2 South after one period, and 12-8 North at the half.

“It’s just a game of runs right now,” Bourgeois said. “We needed moments that are tough in games.”

There were plenty of tough moments yesterday for both teams.

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