Nashua South's Nitzann Alkalay (12) battles Windham's Madelyn Begley (22) for a rebound during Thursday night's Division I clash at the Belanger Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – John Bourgeois knew a week ago his Nashua High School South girls basketball team needed to change things up.

And we’re not talking basketball.

On the contrary, the Panthers, who were facing a week in between games of stewing over a loss to Trinity, Bourgeois felt, needed to get away from the game.

So what did they do? Of all things, they took an improv theatre class, and a few days later went out in the Belanger Gym Thursday night and put on a winning performance, 47-35, over the Windham Jaguars.

Not a sign of any stage fright in the least.

“We honestly just wanted to get them away from basketball,” Bourgeois said. “Sometimes that’s the best way to solve some problems. Get away from basketball, have some fun, not take ourselves seriously. So we had an improv teacher come in, had some classes and let them get some energy out.”

South JV player Molly Hickey is involved with the Peacock Players, so the connection was made and her theatre teacher came. It worked, as the Panthers jumped out to a 15-2 lead and the score never dipped into single digits thereafter.

South led by a whopping 29-11 at the half and 39-25 after three.

“The kids were hungry from last game,” Bourgeois said. “We knew we wanted a response from last game and they definitely responded. I can’t be more proud of this group.”

The Panthers had been in a bit of a funk since their domination over Alvirne in the semis of the Nashua Holiday Tournament, They lost to North in the finals, and after dominating Timberlane Alvirne gave them a much tougher game and then the Panthers lost to Trinity by 14 on the very next night. But last night, until Windham made a little fourth quarter push, South’s intensity seemed to return.

“Tough start,” Windham coach Todd Steffanides said. “We try to mimic the speed of Nashua South in practices and you can’t, at least we can’t. Once our girls adjusted to their speed and pressure, I thought we handled ourselves pretty well.

“They had a good lead. If we didn’t dig ourselves too much of a hole, we would’ve had a better outcome.”

South’s Anya Challinger scored nearly half of her game-high 13 points in the second quarter, while Nicole De Jesus scored 7 of her 12 points in the first and only had two points in the second half. Lexi McGuire had nine points on three 3-pointers. Meanwhile, Windham’s Rileigh Finneran led the Jags (5-3) with 13 points while Madelyn Begley added 11.

Windham did make the Panthers squirm just a bit, when Colbie Cushman’s putback with a foul had the potential to cut the lead down to 11 with just over five minutes to play. But Maggie Gallagher buried a 3-pointer to get the lead back up to 44-29 with 5:03 to play. The Panthers actually had more 3-pointers (nine) than two’s (eight).

Nashua South’s Nicole De Jesus looks to put up a shot against Windham’s Rileigh Finneran duirng Thursday night’s game at the Belanger Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

A key in the fourth quarter was getting DeJesus back involved in the game at both ends of the floor, as she had quiet third period. She helps spark South’s swarming, chaotic style.

“She’s a competitor, she hates to lose,” Bourgeois said. “But she’s the hardest person on herself. That’s what makes her so great, she has a high standard and she definitely lives up to that.

“It definitely was a total team effort. Kids that have been struggling in past games got to see the ball go in, which was nice. It was the momentum that we needed.”

Was this the team that Bourgeois had been waiting to see?

“We have a lot of work to do,” he said. “We wanted a lot of improvement for this game, and we saw that. We have a long way to go. The first thing was let’s execute the small things and make our shots that we have open.”

Thus the curtain closes until Act 8 when Salem comes to town on Tuesday.