If a North-South game is played and no one is there, did it really happen?

If you’ve been watching NBA basketball games, with empty stands, you see a little bit of how things have been at many high school basketball games around the area, including Sunday’s Nashua High School North-South affair.

With two fans per participant allowed at Nashua games during this pandemic winter – and just for the home team — the crowds in Nashua are pretty miniscule. Sometimes you don’t really notice it; But when it comes to North-South, the fact it would always be a community event with a packed house, etc., you could tell the difference at Sunday’s 70-56 North win at Titans Gym.

“It’s a lot different; there’s what, 30 people here and normally the whole place is packed,” North standout senior Sam McElliott said. “A totally different feeling.”

You didn’t notice it as much in the fall. There were enough fans in the stands outside at, say, Stellos Stadium for football games to make it seem somewhat the norm, with four per competitor than just two. Sure, the visiting stands were empty, but you got used to it.

But once you take things indoors for a North-South event, forget it.

“It’s not the same obviously without the student sections, chanting at each other and yelling,” North’s Curtis Harris-Lopez said. “With football you normally don’t hear it that much on the field. But obviously with close quarters, you can hear it a lot. So it’s different.”

It sure is. As North coach Steve Lane said, you’d have South fans dressed in all black, North in white, full house.

“It was an odd feeling,” Lane said. “But in the grand scheme of thing, I think the kids loved just to compete against each other.”

Exactly. Incredibly, the change in atmosphere did not impact the intensity on the floor.

“It doesn’t affect me, and it shouldn’t affect anybody else the way we play,” Harris-Lopez said. “You should have your own energy. You shouldn’t need fans to have the competition.”

McElliott agreed.

“We knew if we had the intensity, we’d come up on top,” he said, “and that’s what happened.”

Not that the Panthers didn’t play hard either. Both teams went at it in a frantic pace.

“I give kudos to the kids at both ends,” South coach Nate Mazerolle said. “Especially them, they were very intense. We had our moments, but weren’t consistent enough.

“But you’re right, we have several kids who would’ve fed off the crowd, as do they. I’m sure it would’ve been a different story.”

Lane credits the work done by Nashua athletic director Lisa Gingras to make sure the students would get a chance to compete, with protocols that keep things as safe as possible. “She gets all the credit,” he said.

Mazerolle, who is also the Panthers’ athletic coordinator and deals with scheduling, etc., noted the difference this year with the pandemic-related cohort scheduling. You see several of your opponents twice in a short amount of time.

Thus, it’s North at South next Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Belanger Gym. Usually the teams play each other just once in hoop; hockey usually plays twice. North fans (two per competitor) were allowed in on Sunday; next weekend it’s South fans’ turn. The games are livestreamed via Nashua ETV for those who can’t attend.

“The only silver lining of all of this horrific stuff we’re living in,” Mazerolle said, “is we get a second chance.”

And hey, for those who like to see a good rivalry played out, so do we – packed house or not.

These days, we’ll take what we can get.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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