Nashua South's Liz DeRusha tags out Nashua North's Taylor Joyal at third during Tuesday night's Battle of the Bridge at Rivier University. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – There’s nothing like playing good friends in the Nashua High School North-South Battle of the Bridge.

Probably nothing like beating them, either.

Before Tuesday night’s North-South softball game at Rivier University’s Raider Diamond, South senior Lizzie DeRusha went over and gave an emotional embrace to her best friends on North, seniors Samantha Hall and Kayla Redman.

Just over an hour later, DeRusha slid across home plate in the bottom of the fifth on a wild pitch with the Panthers’ 12th run that triggered the mercy rule and a 12-0 South win.

“Those are my closest friends growing up,” DeRusha, bound for Eastern Nazarene next year, said. “So it was pretty special to be here. My last Battle of the Bridge. I grew up in Nashua to go to all the Battle of the Bridge stuff.

“So it was great to be with my team, we came out and we killed it. Our energy was great all day.”

The Panthers (3-6) rapped out nine hits off North pitching and took advantage of five Titan errors. They’ve bounced back from an 0-5 start to win three of their last four, while North fell to 0-10.

The Titans managed just three hits vs. freshman pitcher Cate Marvin and reliever Jill Daley.

“This atmosphere is crazy out here,” South coach Kevin Handy said. “Cate had a tough outing (Monday) vs. Londonderry but came out and gave me three good innings, and Jill Daley, I can’t say enough about that kid. … I tell (his players) we have that pitching, and there have been years where we haven’t had it. When you have it you have to enjoy it, got to go out there and do it. Pitching is everything in this game.”

Conversely, as South had two runs in each of the first two innings, North coach Taylor Rowsell felt the Panthers had timed her starter, freshman Emma Church. She brought in reliever Taylor Joyal, not a regular pitcher, to pitch the last two innings and South took advantage of her control issues (five walks, four wild pitchers) to plate five in the fourth for an 11-0 lead and get that final run to end it in the fifth.

“We started to notice that Church was getting timed a little bit,” Rowsell said. “I was planning/hoping to bring her back in to change the speed. They’ve been working really hard both of them. Taylor’s not a pitcher by trade, she was around the plate in warmups and around the plate yesterday, so we took a chance.”

North is hurting for numbers, missing three players with injuries, etc., and nearly didn’t have enough for tonight but Mack Brady returned from knee surgery. But three hits wasn’t going to get it done.

“We didn’t answer,” Rowsell said. “We’ve been a little lackluster lately.”

DeRusha reached base three times for South, while cleanup hitter Emily Richard did four times. The two had RBI hits in the first, Morgan Gillis had an RBI hit in the second and another run scored on an error, and Brooke Berger (three hits, three RBIs) and Marvin had RBIs in the third.

In the big fourth when South broke it open sending nine to the plate, Berger had a big RBI double off Joyal. Two walks and two wild pitches finished things in the fifth.

“We’re getting there,” Handy said. “We have a JV team for the first time in like three years, so it’s building and getting to where we want it to be.”

The win gives South a 5-4 lead in the Battle, but it’s not completely over. The schools have yet to compete in Unified Track — it was rained out last week — so if that can be rescheduled, athletic director Lisa Gingras said, North has a chance for a tie.

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