Nashua North boys and girls basketball sweep doubleheader from Nashua South (video)

NASHUA – Some teams win games by using defense to shut down the opponent and keep the score low.

The Nashua High School North boys basketball team used its defense Thursday night against Nashua South to score as many points as it could.

The Titans allowed just 24 points in the second and third quarter against the Panthers, helping to open up some breathing room on the way to a 78-63 win over South in the Battle of the Bridge varsity doubleheader.

North also won the girls game, as the Titans got out to an early lead and defeated South 58-37.

Alonzo Linton led the way for the North boys, scoring 14 of his game-high 29 points in the fourth quarter, at times answering each South basket with one of his own to keep the Titans just out of reach. Ronnie Silva added 17 points for North (11-3) and Sclyler Boykin had nine.

“Our defense starts everything, and we are a fun team to watch play basketball if we play defense,” North coach Steve Lane said. “Defensively, I thought we started out a little sluggish. Second quarter, we only let up 12 points. Third quarter, we only let up 12 points. That kind of gap, it kind of got us some breathing room.”

North needed it, as the Panthers (8-6) were able to close the gap to eight or nine points six times in the second half, but never could get a stop afterward.

“If we got a stop and a hoop, then things are much tighter, but we just could never get over that,” South coach Nate Mazerolle said. “Not taking anything away from North, they’re very, very good and are one of the best teams in the state. I thought we lost the game. We didn’t execute what we needed to do. They didn’t take away what we were trying to do, we just didn’t do it.”

DJ Frechette led the Panthers with 21 points and Kevin Genao was also in double figures with 16, while Zavier Williams added nine points.

South had a 10-4 lead in the first quarter when North went on a 16-2 run to take a six-point lead. The Panthers responded by pulling within two points, 22-20, early in the second quarter, but the Titans went on a 12-0 run to go up 14 points.

The Panthers struggled at the free throw line in the quarter, shooting just 7 of 14, but a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Genao made it a nine-point game, 39-30, at halftime.

“The great rebound by Rohan Patel and the kickout to Kevin (Genao), we thought ‘great momentum,’ ” Mazerolle said. “It could have been an 18-point game, it felt, and we got it to nine. We took bad shot after bad shot, and that was frustrating.”

North was able to push the lead back to double digits early in the third, but South kept coming back, cutting the lead to eight or nine on three occasions. But every time the Panthers did so, North had answer, most often in the form of Linton.

A 3-pointer by Frechette with 7:06 left in the game pulled South to within nine again, 54-45, but Linton answered with a driving basket.

The pair continued to go back and forth, as Frechette made four straight free throws for South, but Linton answered right back each time.

“We made it a point at halftime, we have a bunch of sets that we can run for Alonzo when there are mismatches,” Lane said. “He’s a tough kid to guard. He’s a scrappy kid, he goes to the boards.”

On the girls side, Alexis Ivory led the way for North (9-6) with 13 points and Sara Cordova was also in double figures with 10. The Titans opened each of the first three quarters with a big run to keep South at a distance.

“We had two miserable games (before Thursday) and to come out and play together, it was great to see,” North coach Ricky Oliver said. “We were disjointed but (Thursday), we played very well together. That’s what we were trying to do, trying to play together and be efficient on offense. That’s what we really wanted to do.”

The Titans opened the game by scoring the first 12 points and led 16-4 before a 3-pointer by South’s Jocelyn Chaput (21 points) made it a nine-point game going into the second.

But any momentum the Panthers (5-12) might have gained quickly evaporated, as a 9-0 run by the Titans doubled their lead.

“We’d just got back into it and then all of a sudden you give up a couple of 3-pointers and then it’s a 12- or 15-point lead,” South coach Dan Wyborney said. “We knew they could shoot from the outside and we had to eliminate that. We didn’t. We let them shoot. They were on and everybody was making their shots and we missed a lot.”

North opened the second half with another run, this time an 11-0 stretch that made it 40-11 midway through the third. South was able to respond with a 9-0 run of its own to get back within 20 points, but that was as close as the Panthers would get.