Nashua South's Broden Landsteiner moves in to score before North goalie Josh Parsons can get back to the crease in time during the Battle of the Bridge Wednesday at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – They saved their best for their biggest regular season stage.

The Nashua High School boys lacrosse team played its best quarter of the season in the second period of Wednesday’s Battle of the Bridge vs. Nashua North, and it led to a resounding 12-2 win at Stellos Stadium.

It was a 1-0 South lead after the first quarter but by halftime the Panthers were up 7-1. That was one heckuva quarter.

“I agree,” Panthes coach Will DeLanoy said. “This game always has a lot of nerves with it, emotion going into it. Once we settled in – we made some adjustments in practice this week to kind of get our offense back in sync and doing some things that we like to do, and I think that was the highest scoring game we’ve had this year. It builds confidence.”

In that second quarter, South got goals by Brendan Skelley, Grayson Flaherty and Broden Landsteiner to go up 4-0. North didn’t get on the board until there was 4:21 left in the half, making it 4-1 on a Nick Wilkinson goal.

But the Panthers responded with three more before the half (Raiden Nuy-Chao from Landsteiner), Luke Lowell and Owen Roy, the latter with 24 seconds left in the half, to make it 7-1.

“Any momentum that we possibly could have had with goals, they answered within five to 10 seconds,” North coach Matt Muser said. “They transitioned the ball very well. At the beat of a save, at the beat of a ground ball, they’ve got three guys trying to push the ball.

“They simply wanted it more than us today in the transition aspect. We just couldn’t retaliate.”

That was pretty much the story. The second half was more of the same. North scored on a goal by Dylan Noble three-plus minutes in, and the Panthers outscored the Titans 5-0 the rest of the way.

“The passing, the catching is really what we live or die by,” DeLanoy said. “We push the ball on transition, our offense is designed on transition.”

Roy, Flaherty, Landsteiner and Skelley each had two goals, while Landsteiner added four assists for a six-point day. Besides Lowell and Nuy-Chao’s singles, Cole Warshafsky, who dominated the faceoff circle, had a goal along with Cody Jackson. Jackson, Flaherty, and Roy all had two assists.

Jacob Lynn had 10 solid stops in goal for South while Josh Parsons was outstanding for North with 18 saves. The Titans other goal was by

The big thing was the Panthers kept North’s top scorer Noble from doing much damage holding him to one goal, that job done mainly by Tyler Benzekri.

“It was a good battle between Dylan and Tyler,” DeLanoy said. “Tyler was working hard in practice the last couple of days to make sure he did what he needs to do.”

“I told them when we were watching film this week that Tyler is one of my favorite poles in the entire league to watch,” Muser said. “He plays really smart. … He was able to really lock (Noble) up.”

It was just that kind of day for the Titans, who couldn’t match South’s intensity, it seemed.

“Every guy (for South) that stepped on the field wanted it 110 percent,” Muser said. “Realistically we can learn something from that.”

“They showed up today in a big moment in front of the home crowd, it was great,” DeLanoy said of his team. “I tip my hat to Nashua North. A lot of young guys which is going to be good for them in the future.”