Nashua South's Broden Landsteiner, right, checks Hollis Brookline's JohnPaul Torgersen during Tuesday night's game in Hollis. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Don’t judge a game by one half.

Tuesday night’s boys lacrosse battle between the Hollis Brookline and Nashua High School South teams had all the makings through the first 24 minutes of a nip-and-tuck game, two evenly matched teams going at it tooth and nail.

All those fun cliches that say you’ll be in for a memorable contest.

But the two halves the Panthers and Cavaliers played couldn’t have been any more different. HB led 6-5 in a see-saw battle at the break and then proceeded to hold the Panthers to one goal in the second half en route to a 11-6 win in an interdivisional contest.

What happened?

“We worked through some kinks in the first half and then the defense really stepped up in the second half, which is all you can ask for,” Cavs coach Mac Martin said, his Division II squad now 3-0 on the young season.

“I think just the emotions of the game, it was pretty high intensity, and (HB) did a good job possessing the ball on offense,” 1-3 Panthers coach Will DeLanoy said. “I kept saying we keep digging ourselves a hole. We’d get out of it, then we fell right back in. … It’s tough. It’s a learning experience, I guess; you might as well get it out of the way early in the season rather than later.”

The Cavs jumped out to a 3-1 lead, but the Panthers put on a three-goal spurt to grab the lead before HB’s Michael O’Hearn gave the Cavs a 6-5 lead with 1:31 left in the half on a low, blistering shot. Panthers goalie Jake Lynn had no shot, but he did have a fabulous game otherwise with 16 saves.

The teams traded a goal apiece to start the second half but then HB said enough was enough as Bennett Torgersen scored three of their final four goals. He finished with four goals and two assists while O’Hearn had a pair and three assists. Noah Taylor had three goals and one assist, while Colin Magnuszewski (goal, assist) and J.P. Torgersen (goal, two assists) also helped out.

South’s Grayson Flaherty had two goals, while singles were by Luke Lowell, Conor Roy, Broden Landsteiner, and Tyler Benzekri. Grant Imbeault led South with two assists.

The Panthers just didn’t have the same rhythm in the second half that they had in the first. HB goalie Levi Mitchell had 11 saves to help that out and HB’s defense led by Dillon Kinney did too.

“It just got sloppy,” DeLanoy said. “It got sloppy and we forgot how to play. We forgot to get back into our system of what we like to do and how we like to move … Man down, penalties and turnovers.”

Hollis Brookline’s Aiden O’Hearn tries to pass the ball over the reach of Nashua South’s Luke Lowell during Tuesday night’s game in Hollis. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Both teams want to take the next step from where they were a year ago, and

DeLanoy left the field last night knowing once again he has a solid goalie in Lynn.

“Jake played great,” he said. “He saw a lot of shots. He made a lot of good saves, a lot on the doorstep. That’s more than we can ask of him, standing on his head. … I love having him in the pipes.”

Meanwhile, Martin feels good about his team.

“I like them a lot, they play hard,” Martin said. “That’s our goal, right? We’re doing a little bit more as a team, trying to take the next step as you said. That was not an easy win. Nashua really fought us for it. … I think we just stepped it up and started moving faster, stopped thinking and just reacting, which is what I wanted.”

Two halves can make a whole after all. Or at least for one team, a win.