Nashua North players watch the tough ending to Sunday's Division I title game loss to Pinkerton at UNH's Lundholm Gym on Sunday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

DURHAM – It’s an age-old formula, and more often than not it always works.

Talent wins out. If not right away, eventually.

That was the deal in No. 1 Pinkerton Academy’s 90-76 win over Nashua High School North on Sunday in the Division I boys basketball title game at the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gym.

The Astros stormed out to a 23-10 lead, only to see North amazingly battle back and head into the lockeroom with a 43-38 lead. The Titans led 50-42 after a Jaden Pena 3-pointer but then watched the Astros run off 13 straight points and the game was never the same.

“At that point, obviously we ran into a team that meant business, they’re really good,” Titans coach Steve Lane said after his 17-5 team’s 13 game winning streak came to a halt. “We promote conditioning, we promote mental toughness. But you can’t suddenly get somebody to guard a 6-9 guy. You can’t promote talent.

“What the kids did this year was amazing. I’m so proud of where we got to. We just ran into a team that was better than us.”

The 20-1 Astros, who lost in last year’s final, were led by that 6-9 player, senior Jackson Marshall, who had 31 points and 14 rebounds. The Titans had their own go-to player in senior guard Jaden Pena, who was fantastic with 30 points on 10 of 16 shooting from the floor. Robinson Rodriguez added 22 points as well. But Marshall was simply too much as the Astros outscored the Titans 25-11 on second chance points, with 18 offensive rebounds.

“There’s the difference,” Lane said. “That was one of our details for the game. We have to defend, but we have to rebound. Rebounding (46-39 Pinkerton overall) was not what we accomplished tonight.”

But it was there, as the Titans had the Astros on the ropes, and then something clicked for Pinkerton midway through the third quarter, after which they led 67-61.

“We just knew we had to lock in on defense to win,” Astro guard Andrew Brander, who burned the Titans for 26 points and 11 boards, said. “We were hitting our shots. … We started playing defense, and we just fed off of that.”

“It was just about our compete level on the defensive end,” Astros coach Mike Dunham said. “I thought they had some easy shots, and they made some tough shots. But our compete level was really really high on the defensive end in the second half.

Then the game was starting to resemble last year’s 75-55 semifinal loss to these same Astros, a game of runs.

“The kids have been in that situation before,” Lane said. “They have good players who look up the floor, get it to the open man, they make layups and they don’t turn it over. That’s what championship teams do.”

But North did some of the same earlier, recovering from that slow start to lead at halftime.

“I’m fairly impressed that we did it,” Lane said. “It could have been see you later, good-bye. An all too familiar situaiton from last year, when we were down 20, creep back to five, down 20 again, and creep back. A very similar feeling, except this group is a little bit more resilient than what we had last year.”

The Astros went into the locker room with one thought: Don’t worry, be happy. And play defense.

” Just have fun, why be down, we can still win it,” Brander said.

“We had just given up 30 points (31) in the second quarter,” Astro point guard Parker Bienvenue-Cernuda said after his10-point, 5-assist, 9-rebound game. “We really need to stick up on defense, hold accountability for each other, and run our game plan.”

“We’ve been down before,” Dunham said. “Especially in the second half, we made one adjustment, put Parker Bienevue-Cernuda off the ball and Andrew (Brander) at the point, that way they can’t just sag off in the middle. And I had Jackson on a high ball screen, that way they can’t just camp on him down on the post. .. Drew and Jackson were just awesome tonight.”

Dunham also praised the job Charles Ludden did in holding North sharpshooter Parth Miglani to eight points.

Nashua North’s Jaden Pena goes up for two during Sunday’s title game vs. Pinkerton at UNH. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Brander began the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer to make it 70-61, and a James Wallace layup gave Pinkerton its first double digit lead, 75-64, since the first quarter, with 6:10 to play. Soon it grew to 80-76 with 4:30 left after a Brander runner, and that was just about it. In some ways, the Astros also beat North at its own game, outscoring the Titans 22-9 off turnovers.

It was a North program that made history in its 20th season, the first North team to reach the finals and the first Nashua public school boy or girl hoop team to play in Durham in 20 years. They were 4-4 in mid-January and then had not lost since until yesterday. Quite a run.

“Thirteen in a row is pretty good in Division I,” Lane said. “I dont’ care what team you are, who you’re playing, when you’re playing … Unfortunately, somebody had to lose.”

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