Nashua South's Shane Lemire goes airborne for a shot as he led the Panthers with 15 points on Friday night. (Photo by Dan Attorri)

NASHUA – When you graduate the Division I Player of the Year and the best basketball player in the state of New Hampshire, you know you’re going to have some big shoes to fill, and head coach Nate Mazerolle knows it’s going to take a few players to fill that role.

Junior Shane Lemire scored 15 points and fellow junior Daniel Karavanic scored 14 and controlled the boards, and several other Panthers stepped up in their roles as the Nashua South boys’ basketball team opened the season with a 48-41 victory on its home court over the Goffstown Grizzlies.

Former Panther Josh Caruso scored 28 points per game last season and was also named Mr. Basketball by the New Hampshire Basketball Coaches Organization. That, combined with a snow day on the second day of the season and some changes in personnel, Mazerolle had modest expectations for Friday night’s opener.

“I expected not to see the most beautiful game tonight. It wasn’t. But we made enough plays,” Mazerolle said. “We survived.”

Mazerolle also expected balanced contributions from his squad, and for the most part, that’s how it played out.

Goffstown led 10-5 midway through the first quarter, but junior Will McKenney (six points) hit a 3 late in the first quarter and connected on another shot from 3-point land to open the second to give South a 13-12 lead (Goffstown led 12-10 at the end of the first).

Lemire hit back-to-back 3s in the middle of the frame to help the Panthers take a 26-20 lead into halftime.

But when 6-8 center Karavanic started to attack the boards, South started to take control of the game. Karavanic scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half and did a good job getting to the line, shooting 6-for-7 from the charity stripe.

“We ask so much of (Daniel),” Mazerolle said. “He has to defend in the paint. He has to get every rebound because he’s the biggest guy out there. We ask him to score too. That’s a lot.”

Then, it was time for Cody Jackson (six points) to shine. The senior scored a layup and then knocked down a pair of free throws late in the third to extend South’s lead to 40-30.

Goffstown’s Tyler Dionne (12 points) scored a bucket to cut the Panthers’ lead to 40-33 heading into the fourth.

Karavanic, Lemire and Jackson all had baskets over the final eight minutes, but all over the floor, their teammates were doing whatever was needed to secure the victory.

Junior Rigo Challinger moved the ball well and forced a turnover. Classmate Kelian De Jesus had a block. Fellow junior Francisco Rodriguez (five points) moved the ball well up the court. And in the three minutes that Karavanic wasn’t on the floor, senior Collin Langer had some huge rebounds to keep Goffstown from getting back into the game.

“Challinger gave us a spark off the bench. Langer did everything we asked him to do,” Mazerolle said. “It was (a balanced effort). There were stretches where Shane Lemire hit a couple great shots. Daniel (Karavanic) had some great moves and got to the free throw line, which we wanted him to do. That’s what we’re expecting. Everyone knows we graduated the greatest scorer of all time. We’re trying to figure that out and I think we started to.”

While the attack was balanced and role players stepped up, there were a couple key areas Mazerolle wants to fix moving forward.

A pair of turnovers late in the game led to fastbreak baskets by Dionne and Sammy Patterson, cutting South’s lead to 44-41 in the last couple of minutes before baskets from Karavanic and Jackson put the game out of reach.

“We love the dribble,” Mazerolle said. “What we’re trying to do is predicated on less dribbling. When we dribble we stand around. When (Goffstown) was pressing at the end we were standing and watching, and then got in desperate mode and made some suspect passes. … I’m also always going to say defense. I know we only gave up 41 points and tonight was a slugfest, but I’m always worried about that.”

The Panthers have a couple more practices to put some more pieces together before their next game, also at home, against the Pinkerton Astros. Pinkerton opened the season with an 85-61 win over Nashua North on Friday night.

It was a promising opening night, and, according to Mazerolle “With a little more practice time I think we’ll get that much better.”