Nashua South's Anya Challinger, left, tries to beat Alvirne's Taylor Small to the ball during Saturday's semifinals of the Nashua Holiday Tournament at Titans Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – If you didn’t see it, you may not have believed it.

There’s been an upward trend for the Nashua High School South girls basketball team this season, but the Panthers took things to another level in their 58-28 Nashua Holiday Tournament semifinal victory over Alvirne on Saturday at Titans Gym.

Will a 33-0 run over an otherwise competitive Broncos team convince you South is for real?

“I couldn’t be more happy for Coach John, he does a fabulous job,”Alvirne coach Frank Girginis said. “I told him about this year, ‘Man, this is your time.’

“His girls came out and played. … We need to be better. We have to play them for real in eight or nine days.”

The win sets up a North vs. South final today at 3 p.m. in the tournament, which last occurred two years ago, as the Titans dethroned defending tourney champion Milford 69-45 in the day’s opener. The two city rivals did play in the tourney last year, but it was in the consolation game.

“It’s great to compete with North,” South coach John Bourgois said. “There’s talent on both sides of the floor, and it gives us an opportunity to do our stuff in a game where it matters a little bit more to them.”

It was close only in the first quarter, which ended with South up 8-6. Then the Panthers pitched a shutout, and went into the locker room up 33-6.

What happened? The Panthers swarmed all over the Broncos and Girginis has a team, he said, that has been flu ravaged and barely practiced. As he said, “Today showed every bit a team that practiced an hour and a half in the past eight days.”

South was led by Maggie Gallagher’s 17 points, with Anya Challinger (13) and Nicole De Jesus (12) factors as well. Taylor Small had eight to lead Alvirne.

“We believe in this group, we believe we have multiple pieces that can help us win,” Bourgeois said. “Really today was about just doing the fundamentals and building on good habits. But yeah, we’ll take a win, however we can.”

And they’re getting them, at 4-0 overall on this very young season.

“I think they’re just competitive, they want to get better every day,” Bourgeois said. “There’s something special about this group.”

NORTH 69, MILFORD 45

The Titans were complaining about poor shooting in their season opener just over two weeks ago, but that wasn’t the case yesterday. Their shooting – eight 3-pointers, six by Angie King who led the Titans with 20 points – was the biggest factor in this one. North led 28-20 at the half and 46-35 after three before pulling away.

“I knew the offense would flow,” Dutilley said. “We started to just rely on knowing we were going to score or feeling like we were going to score.

“But then we’d turn around and give one up on the other end. We’ve got to stack multiple score-stop score-stop. Even if the 3-point shot’s flowing for us, you still have to go back on the other end and take care of business. … That was vacation defense, we took four days off.”

Nashua North’s Lilly Small (23) puts up a shot against a group of Spartan defenders, including Maya Remella, left, and Lexi Bausha (40) during the semis of the Nashua Holiday Tournament at Titans Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Alaina Small added 12 while Lilly Small had 10 for North. Shea Hansen led Milford with a game-high 25 while Lexi Bausha added 10.

The Spartans (1-1 overall) had played only one regular season game before the tourney, and it may have showed.

“For sure, playing Nashua North was kind of a little bit of a slap in the face,” Milford coach Mike Davidson said. “Now they know. They know what it’s going to take to compete against a much more competitive team. So this was kind of a wakeup call.

“This is why we play this tournament. We play to win it, but we also play it to see where are we at, where do we need to go?”

They’ll go back to North today to play Alvirne in the noon consolation game, followed by a Souhegan-Milford boys consolation at 1:30. Then it’s the North-South girls final at 3. Fasten your seat belts for that one.