Nashua North's Jayden Montgomery heads to the hoop ahead of Exeter's Evan Pafford during Friday night's 58-41 Titans win in Nashua. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA — It was worth the wait Friday night for the Nashua High School boys basketball team.

The Titans varsity game with Exeter was delayed a bit due to Blue Hawk bus issues, but no problem as North roared to a 58-41 win. That, coupled with their big road win at previously unbeaten Pinkerton two nights earlier, has to convince many that this 8-2 team has to be taken quite seriously.

“Two good wins this week, it’s been a long week, at tough week after the emotional stuff on Monday (vs. Bishop Guertin),” Titans coach Steve Lane said. “To go into Pinkerton…they’re still in my mind one of the top teams that I’ve seen in a long time. And these guys (Exeter, now 8-4), this is a quality win as well.

“They shared the ball, they played defense. Starting to hopefully open some eyes in the state.”

They’ll have the Blue Hawks’ vote, especially after jumping on them right away, running off to a 15-4 start and really never looking back. The closest the Blue Hawks, who trailed 27-8 at one point in the first half, would get the rest of the night was nine.

“They’re a really good team, and we can’t get down 18-4 off the bus,” Exeter coach Jeff Holmes said. “We’ve had a lot of shooting woes of late, and have struggled scoring from the perimeter.

“They’re a team we didn’t want to press a lot, because they’ve got really good guards, quick and athletic. But we felt we had to, down 12 or 15, and they got the best of us when we tried to press them.”

Still, it was a game at halftime, thanks to an 11-0 run that helped make it 34-25. But North’s Thomas Laurendi (five 3s, team high 16 points) got a four-point play to increase lead to 40-27 early in the third quarter and basically that was that. It was 48-35 after three and back-to-back treys early in the fourth sealed the deal at 54-37.

Jayden Montgomery had 15 points, while North scoring machine Trevor Labrecque, bothered by a hip injury after hitting the floor hard in Derry, gutted it out for 10 points while Jack Peters had 11. Exeter’s Ryan Luper had a team-high 15.

“It’s a game you’re worried, you’re coming off a big win, coming off a tough loss,” Lane said. “Are the guys going to be ready to play? And they answered the bell tonight.”

The Titans are without sparkplug Jack Sullivan for the rest of the season (hand), but their tenacity remains. Their ability to strip the ball led to a handful of costly Exeter turnovers in the first half.

“That’s Derek (Finlay) and that’s Jayden,” Lane said. “Those guys are tenacious. They set the tone for us.”

It’s a tone the rest of Division I has to be hearing at this point.

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