Nashua North's Andy Barry reacts after a swing in front of Nashua South catcher Caleb Rich during Thrusday's 9-3 Panthers' prelim win at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Their first meeting was an absolute classic, a baseball game to be remembered.

The second? Not so much, and that was just fine with the Nashua High School South baseball team, which pummeled city rival Nashua North 9-3 in the Divison I prelims.

South, the third seed, will now host No.6 Exeter (14-6) Saturday in the quarterfinals at 11 a.m.at Holman.

The last time these two teams faced each other, the Panthers had trouble with the curve – Elias Bourque’s curve, which they knew they were going to face again.

This time, South, down 1-0 in the first, put up five runs to grab a 5-1 lead and never looked back, getting 10 hits on the day.

“We knew he was going to be tough to hit,” said South center fielder River Hart, the Divison I Player of the Year who had two hits. “We were working on curve balls all week, knowing that was the pitch we were going to see. We came into it with the middle-out mindset, and we did it.”

“To tell you the truth, I was actually happy we were down 1-0,” South coach James Gaj said, earning his first tourney win since taking over as head coach eight years ago. “My guys get complacent when they jump up right away. I wanted them to know they still had to play a baseball game. To have to sit there and come back after being down one, that’s when they play their best.”

North got that early lead off South complete game winner and ace, Nolan Mederos, by virtue of a Ryan Bourgeois (3 for 4) RBI double. Mederos, though, got Brady Sullivan to line out hard to Hart in center to end a shakey top of the first.

But then the Panther bats went to work against Bourque. With the bases loaded and one out, Jake O’Connor doubled in two runs and Alex Hulfachor singled in two more to make it 4-1. An error gave South a 5-1 lead.

“Elias owned us (a two-hitter) in the (first) North-South game,” Gaj said. “We did nothing but study that kid for the past week. The YouTube video, we watched him, we timed him, told our kids exactly what’s going on. We were ready.”

The Panthers are enjoying their best season since the title team of 2005, but seeing North (No. 14, 7-13) was the last thing they wanted.

“If there’s anybody that knows my team better than me, it’s Coach (North’s Zach) Harris,” Gaj said. “He’s a very good coach over there. He put in some guys, he’s got a couple good guys next year, the year after, he’s going to have a good squad over there.”

“Elias is our best, if we played this game 10 more times, Elias would be out there more times,” Harris said. “He did a good job the first time and I didn’t think he did a bad job this time. We’ve got to make plays behind him. A couple mistake pitches left up, but we’ve got to do a better job fielding behind him and getting outs when we can.”

South added to its lead on four hits and two more North miscues in the fourth, RBI singles by Caleb Rich and Leo Kopiko at the bottom of the order and Albert De La Rosa near the top. Dean Adams’ sac fly made it a 9-1 game. North scored two off Mederos in the seventh, all on the same wild pitch. But Mederos ended up giving up six hits, but only three after the first, hitting two batters, walking three and striking out five. As Gaj said, “You’ve got to go with your best” in a tourney opener.

“Hats off to them,” Harris said. “That’s a great team. They’re the three seed for a reason, they’ve got the Coach of the Year and the Player of the Year for a reason. He’s done such a phenomenal job over there all year with these guys. I know he took his lumps last year with this group, and kind of just hung on and grinded through it and they are where they are now because they’ve got a ton of experience.

“And that’s us. We’ve got two freshmen, a sophomore playing in this game, and mostly juniors. Hopefully we’re going through the same kind of growth they had last year.”

North loses eight seniors that Harris said he will miss greatly. Meanwhile, South gets to play another day, with lefty Nick Shaw taking the hill vs. the Blue Hawks, whom the Panthers beat 6-1 in the regular season – but that was the second game of the spring. Exeter’s pitching is strong, and they beat Dover 3-2 to reach the quarters.

“Nick Shaw’s been one of our guys,” Gaj said. “He’s just a grinder. We tell him to do something, he just does it. He’s been Second Team All-State kid, 5-1 on the year, a 1.1 ERA, he just takes care of business. That’s what we’ve been doing all season, and we’ll stick with it.”

And use the sticks.

“We just have to be able to hit one through nine,” Hart said. “We hit one through nine today and put up nine runs. We hit one through nine against (Exeter), I don’t see us losing.”

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