Pinkerton's Brady Sullivan goes up for a layup vs. Nashua North's Robinson Rodriguez during the first half of Friday night's season opener for both at Titans Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It’s no secret how the Nashua High School North boys basketball team didn’t get a win vs. Pinkerton Academy in Friday’s season opener.

Just ask Titans coach Steve Lane, specifically about his defense. He’ll tell you.

“Pretty poor,” he said after the Astros grabbed the lead for good in the second quarter en route to a 78-66 win. “Fundamentally we’re not real good on the defensive end right now. We’re having trouble keeping guys in front of us, some rebounding issues on that end as well.

“We’ve got to clean some stuff up. We’ve got a lot of improvement to do.”

Granted, there are so many differences in the two teams from their battle in last year’s Division I final. But one thing was constant, the Astros can score. They trailed 14-13 after the first quarter, but led by as many as 13 in the second before settling for a 38-29 halftime lead. The Titans got to within seven in the third quarter before the Astros pulled away, led by Brady Sullivan and Ryan Bonilla with 18 apiece. The Astros had four in double figures.

“We have a lot of shooters which is great,” Astros coach Mike Dunham said. “I thought our shooters hit open shots, and that’s what it’s been about during the offense. It doesn’t matter who scores as long as we score. If we’re open, shoot it.”

And they did, hitting on nine 3-pointers on the night.

The Titans were led by Robinson Rodriguez, who finished with 27 points and nine rebounds, plus Alize Roig-Cortez, who had 21. But it didn’t matter as much as the Astros just kept the offense flowing.

“If you don’t contain guys on dribble penetration, a lot of terrible things can happen,” Lane said. “And it left guys with wide open 3’s, and they can shoot it.”

The Astros went on a 15-7 run to start the second quarter. Now, in the second half, North got within seven, 38-31, on a Roig-Cortez trey, but back-to-back 3s by Bonilla Cristian Brander got Pinkerton up 58-45 and they led 58-49 going into the final quarter.

It was still fairly close, 65-57 after Rodriguez hit a 3-pointer with 5:45 to play, but the Astros never let it get closer than eight the rest of the way and a Bonilla layup made it 71-59 with 1:45 left.

“They had no fear tonight,” Lane said of the Astros. “I’ve got to give Pinkerton a lot of credit. They came in here and stuck it to us from the beginning.”

Usually, when North makes a run like it did early in the third quarter, things change. Not this time.

“With this particular group, you need to have one of those guys step up, leadership,” Lane said. “Tuck it under your arm, settle it down on both ends of the floor. I don’t think we’ve developed that yet. … We had a little momentum, but missed a layup, they went down and banged a 3.

“We’ve got a long way to go, obviously it’s very early in the season. But you’d like to see one of your senior leaders tuck it under and take control.”

Dunham felt the Astros had that floor leadership.

“Honestly it was just our poise offensively,” Dunham is. “Wilson (Youssef) is a phenomenal player. He’s grown a lot as a point guard, I trust him, and our kids made big plays and big shots down the stretch.”

“It’s high school basketball,” Lane said. “But the bottom line is we’re going to have to get better defensively or we’re going to have trouble winning any games in this division.”