Merrimack boys basketball uses tough defense to defeat Nashua South in D1 prelims
MERRIMACK – The playoff atmosphere was alive and well as No. 11 Nashua High School South came north to face No. 6 Merrimack for a Division I preliminary round game Tuesday. With both student sections filled, the Tomahawks student section was treated to a 48-38 victory.
The game opened on a 7-0 South run, capped by a Richie Mercado 3-pointer. The lead jumped to a 9-2 lead, which in turn was South’s biggest lead of the contest.
The reminder of the first half was all about Merrimack’s defense, which only let up three more points the entire remainder of the first half, giving the Tomahawks (13-6) a 15-12 half time lead.
“We are a blue collar kind of team,” Merrimack coach Tim Goodridge said when asked about his defense. “This has been our strength all season. If we could increase our productivity on offense we would be a really special team.”
Defensively Merrimack let up only a single point in the second quarter. Merrimack simply played fundamentally sound defense creating turnovers and crashing the boards.
The Merrimack offense was led by Ian Cummings, who finished with 18 points, and Owen Ploss, who added 16, all in the second half. Goodridge noted that in the second half, Ploss’ 3-point shot really helped spark and space out the offense, giving the Tomahawks points on the scoreboard.
On the other hand, South (8-11) scored the ball, especially from the foul line, but the deficit never got lower than seven points the entire fourth quarter.
South was led by senior Kevin Genao, who had 15 points, while Mercado added 10, and senior center Max Osgood dropped in eight.
South seemed to struggle with Merrimack’s physical style even though South is pretty physical themselves.
“We like that aggressive, tough defense style of basketball,” South coach Nate Mazerolle said. “There were not a lot of foul calls, we like that. We just couldn’t get it done on the offensive end.”
But Mazerolle was just disappointed that his four seniors Genao, Osgood, Harper Niven, and Jacob Wilcox where never able to get over the hump of winning a playoff game.
“In this business, losing is expected and okay you have to deal with it, but I feel bad I never got those four guys a playoff win,” Mazerolle said.
Merrimack goes onto face No. 3 Bedford (15-3) in the quarterfinals at 7 p.m. on Friday. When the teams faced each other earlier this year, Bedford defeated Merrimack by the lopsided score of 50-13. South returns three starters and looks forward to next season.
