Salem boys basketball holds off Nashua North to pick up win

NASHUA – With the game on the line Thursday night, the message to the Salem High School boys basketball team wasn’t any different than it usually is.

The Blue Devils led Nashua North by one point with a little more than nine seconds remaining, and coach Rob McLaughlin stressed one more time how important defense is to the what his team wants to do.

So when North’s Alonzo Linton drove the lane, Salem collapsed on the paint, forcing a difficult shot that came up short, and the Blue Devils held on for a 46-45 win over the Titans in a Division I game.

The win capped a fourth-quarter comeback for Salem (1-1), which erased a seven-point deficit with a 9-1 run early in the quarter and then got a big 3-pointer from Nick Hayes to take a 46-43 lead with 56.9 seconds to play.

“We talked about playing for a full 32 minutes and I thought they didn’t quit,” McLaughlin said. “We got down seven there in the third and early fourth, they kept fighting and fighting and didn’t let it get to them. I’m proud of their effort and proud of the way they hung in together.”

North (0-1) had a chance to tie before Linton’s final drive, as Levi Gosselin converted an offensive rebound and was fouled with 23.4 seconds left.

But after a timeout, Gosselin missed the free throw, and after the Titans got the rebound, Linton missed a 3. A jump ball on the rebound gave the Blue Devils the ball, but a Salem turnover gave the Titans the ball back with 9.7 seconds to go.

“We’ve got a goal of keeping teams in the low 50s or high 40s, and we’ll give ourselves a chance to win,” McLaughlin said. “We looked at them and said this is why we preach it every day, this is why we spend so much time on it. One stop and you get the game, just hold on. They stepped up and it was nice.”

Griffin Curtis finished with a team-high 14 points for Salem, including 7 of 8 at the free throw line, and Hayes added 11 points, including three 3-pointers. Freshman Trevor DeMinico also was in double figures with 10 points, two of which came on a big steal and fast-break layup that capped the 9-1 run and gave the Blue Devils a 41-40 lead with 3:31 to play.

Linton led all scorers with 22 points, going 10 of 14 from the line, and Sclyler Boykin added eight points. But the Titans struggled to score inside, missing a number of layups as Salem contested everything North tried to get in the paint.

“We played really hard,” North coach Steve Lane said. “The effort cannot be faulted at all. We rebounded the ball extremely well. With Levi (Gosselin) and Big V (Vishvak Vadivel) in there, we dominated. We just couldn’t make a layup. If we could convert some of those, then we’re better off as a team.”

North had a 10-9 lead after one quarter, but a 3-pointer with 10 seconds left in the first half by Hayes gave Salem a 23-20 lead at the break.

After a quick basket from each side to open the third, the Titans went on a 13-3 run to take their first seven-point lead, 35-28, with 58.1 seconds left in the third quarter. Two free throws by Linton with 5:46 remaining gave North a 39-32 lead, but Salem answered quickly.

A putback by Matt Soldano cut North’s lead to five, and after a Titans turnover, Hayes hit a 3 to make it 39-37. Linton made one of two free throws moments later to put North up three, but back-to-back layups by DeMinico put Salem up by one.

The teams traded a handful of free throws after that until it was tied at 43 with 1:36 to go. Another North turnover set up Hayes’ game-winning 3-pointer, and the Salem defense came up with a pair of stops in the final moments.

“I’m proud of their effort and proud of the way they hung in together,” McLaughlin said. “We got a bunch of contributions from a lot of guys, some of them didn’t get a lot of minutes.”