Dover's Geffen Adorian plays keep away from Nashua South's Grant Imbeault (15) and Owen Roy during Friday's Division I prelim at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – In many games, the start can be just as important as the finish.

The Nashua High School boys lacrosse team learned that postseason lesson in falling short of No. 9 Dover, 14-11 in a Division I preliminary round game on Friday at sticky Stellos Stadium.

The No. 8 Panthers (8-11) allowed Dover (9-10) to jump out to an 8-3 halftime lead and 9-3 early in the third quarter before climbing back to within 12-11with 4:18 to play.

But it was the Green Wave that closed it out, earning the trip to Derry on Saturday for a 1 p.m. quarterfinal with top seed Pinkerton.

The Panthers, though, will see the silver lining in their comeback.

“It showed that all the hard work they put in this year to get those eight wins to be able to be in the playoffs, I hope that second half proved they belonged here,” South coach Will Delanoy said. “I’m very proud of the way they played in the second half. That’s how we play; that’s how Nashua South plays.”

“I think it was the first half,” Dover coach Chris Ketcham said. “We came out pretty strong in the first half, and for a 1 o’clock game, that’s not really normal in NHIAA.

“We got a big game out of Logan Carter. He was racking them up in the first half.”

Carter had three straight in the second quarter to help the Green Wave led 8-2 at one point and finished with five in the game, his last being an empty-netter with 1:14 left as South gambled moving goalie Jacob Lynn (12 saves) out and lost, as that made it an all-important 13-11 lead.

The Panthers cut things to 10-8 by the end of the third quarter, and were helped by the faceoff domination by mainly Cole Warshafsky as South went 20-8. When Cody Jackson ran right in off the faceoff and beat Dover netminder Danny Bretz – who was solid with 12 saves – it was nailbiting time at 12-11 with 4:14 left.

“This is a good team (South) over here,” Ketcham said. ” They came out fired up in the second half, we came out a tired and a little flat. But we pulled it together there in the fourth quarter.”

South was led by three goals each from Grant Imbeault and Owen Roy.Brendan Skelley, Jackson, Tyler Benzekri Grayson Flaherty and Joe Kudla each had a goal apiece. Besides Carter, Dover’s other big weapon was Tobey Desroches with five. Cooper Ketcham had two while Parker Ketcham and Kyle Behan had one.

With just a one goal lead, the Green Wave was killing the clock well, much to the chagrin of the Panthers.

“Toward the end in those final two minutes the guys did a real good job of running away from the defense,” Ketcham said. “We got a couple of good looks at the open net.”

“They have really good players,” DeLanoy said. Hats off to Dover. Tobey is a real good player and we understand they try to get him the ball, and they do a real good job of manipulating our defense to get him the ball.

“We just didn’t have the urgency in the first half. In the second half we figured it out a little bit. But when you get down in a hole it’s hard to climb out of it. We got within one. It was good.”

But just not quite good enough.