Nashua South's Kevin Arajuo, center, celebrates with teammates Vitor Da Sila Pegas (19) and Damien Rodrigues after scoring a goal in Saturday's Division I quarterfinal win over Exeter at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Nashua High School boys soccer coach Tom Bellen kept waiting to see the team he knew he had on Saturday at Stellos Stadium.

It showed up just in time, as the Panthers were aggressive in the first overtime and Michael Esposito buried an open shot during a flurry that gave Division I’s top seed a 2-1 quarterfinal victory over No. 8 Exeter.

“Sometimes you peak at the wrong time, we’ve got to rebuild to get to where we were,” Bellen said, his team now 15-1-1. “We tend to defend too much when we get up instead of getting after it. Overtime, we said, let’s get after it. I didn’t want PKs’, let’s get after it, let’s go forward, let’s do what we do, and we had three chances right away when we buried that other one.”

Esposito got the ball kicked out to him and he wasted no time letting it go after scorers Kevin Araujo and Damien Rodriguez each missed great opportunities during the same possession.

“It was the first half of overtime and we came out much stronger than we did the rest of the game,” Esposito said. “We knew the first two halves we weren’t at our best at all. We knew we had to do something, make something happen. The ball came out to me – I was looking for the bottom right corner, where the goal went. That’s a keeper’s weak side, especially there, the keeper (Exeter’s Brendan Michael) didn’t have an angle to see it.”

South was on the ropes. Exeter had dominated play for the most part, putting the Panthers back on their heels even though they had a 1-0 lead on a rocket goal by Araujo about 15 minutes into the first half. They were making life miserable for South keeper Antonio Pancine (10 saves), and thought they’d get more than a goal, for sure.

“A hundred percent, it’s the way soccer goes sometimes,” Exeter coach Dan Curran said, his team finishing up at 10-5-3. “And I felt that if there’s any consolation in this game I’m now sure outside of getting the goal there’s much more we could have done today.

“I wish we had five more minutes. When we were going this way again I was like ‘Oh God, I just hope we can hold on for 10. When we were going with with the wind we were flying, had them locked in and had some real good opportunities.”

And one of those was the game-tying goal, coming off a corner in the 61st minute off the foot of Sean Haugh. Darren Grant, a junior defender, was able to body the ball home.

“Ninety nine times that ball ends up squirting out of bounds, but this time he gets the ball,” Curran said. “We’ve got some big boys, and I felt like corner after corner one of these guys is going to get to it and get it in.”

It was an eye-opener for the Panthers, who face No. 4 Windham in the semis Wednesday at Manchester Memorial at 6 :15 p.m.

“We’re still young, so I think for these guys, first playoff game, trying to figure out the intensity level, what you’re going to do, the intensity level, how fast is the game, how teams are really up against us most of the season,” Bellen said. “We’re the one-seed, so people want to take us down.”

So it’s up to players like Esposito to come through.

“He’s come up huge this year, he’s got 15 goals now, and he’s an All-State player in my book, and he makes those big ones,”Bellen said. “He’s had big goals all year against good teams, and there’s none bigger than that.”

Then there was Pancine, who stopped a breakaway late in regulation and paid a physical price for it thriving in pain and not getting a stoppage. And he got back up and made another.

“Got to be plus-one a game, and that’s his plus-one, just don’t give up anything you’re not supposed to,” Bellen said. “That was his plus one and he saved us. …

Survive and advance is what the tournament is all about.

“The bar’s been raised,” Bellen said. “Now they needed that little taste of pressure … Now I think they understand it.”