Nashua North's Robinson Rodriguez is in the middle of a sea of green, including Dover's Julian Black (4), Jack Chaxton, center, and Owen Corringham during Thursday night's Division I clash at Titans Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – A different year brings different results for a different team.

That’s the best way to explain the tough 0-3 start for the Nashua High School North boys basketball team, as they dropped a game that often in the past they would have won, 59-56 in overtime at the hands of the Dover Green Wave.

“Different personnel, different year,” Titans coach Steve Lane said. “Everything’s an adventure. We’ll try to figure some things out.”

It was a tight game throughout, and North was hurt by the fact it missed five free throws late in regulation into the first part of the extra session. The Titans had a 52-48 lead with just over a minute to play but Dover went on a 5-1 run, including a 3-pointer by Julian Black and a game tying weak side layup with three seconds left by Michael Gorman to send it to OT tied at 53.

It was still knotted at 55 but Dover’s 12 and 3 hit two freebies each, making it 59-56 with 41.9 ticks left. It stayed that way, although North’s Josh Sullivan missed a long 3-point attempt at the buzzer. It didn’t help the Titans when they went 0-for-5 from the floor in the last 1:10.

“You make couple free throws in key times, you don’t turn it over up four, little things, little fundamentals, we’ll clean it up,” Lane said. “Tonight was a way better effort than the last two games but our defensive effort is still having trouble keeping guys in front of us, stopping dribble penetration. We’ll try to clean that up, hopefully we can do a little work over the holiday break.”

The Titans trailed 19-17 after one quarter but led 28-25 at the break and 41-40 going into the final eight minutes of regulation. But it was still a happy bus ride back to the seacoast for the Green Wave.

“I said to them if you want to pull off an upset against a team that was in the finals last year you’ve got to make free throws,” Dover coach Matt Fennessy said. “They kind of buckled down and made big free throws.”

It was a game both teams needed. Dover came in 1-1 and of course the Titans were in an 0-2 hole. “You could sense it,” Fennessy said. “You could sense it. They’re tough. He (Lane) has got a lot of young guys, and we’ve got a lot of young guys. To be 2-1 going into the break is awesome.”

It didn’t look like that would happen before Dover’s Yavier Morales spotted Gorman on the weak side for the game-tying hoop. Morales finished with 19 points.

“Michael got to the right spot,” Fennessy said. “And Yavi, I thought he was amazing tonight. He does a lot of nice things, passing and scoring.”

Robinson Rodriguez led North with 21 points while Alize Roig-Cortez had 11.

Remember, North was struggling in late January last year before being unbeaten from then on until the very last game. How does Lane think this particular group will respond?

“We’ll find out when we get back to practice,” Lane said. “Keep working at it, try to improve and get better.”