Shane Lemire gets greeted by Aarush Polturi and the rest of the Panther bench after his five 3-pointers in the first quarter of Wednesday night's Division I prelim vs. Windham at the Belanger Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – For at least Wednesday night, Shane Lemire’s name was changed to Shane Le-fire.

That’s because the Nashua High School South boys basketball player was hot as could be in the opening quarter of the No. 7 Panthers’ 59-36 Division I preliminary round win over No. 10 Windham at the Belanger Gym.

All Lemire did was hit five 3-pointers in the first quarter for 15 of his game-high 23 points, basically setting the tone to send South to face No. 2 Bedford in the quarterfinals on Saturday.

“I was hot, man, I was shooting everything,” a beaming Lemire said after. “I knew that if I shot it, it was going in. I work on my shot a lot a lot, and I’m confident in it.”

The Panthers led 21-10 after that first quarter, and never looked back.

“He’s had some games like that,” South coach Nate Mazerolle said. “Maybe not to that level, but I’m just so happy for him because we have so many guys who sometimes get the limelight and he doesn’t, and he won us the game in the first quarter. It was pretty much over.”

“Defensively we weren’t enough tonight,” Windham coach Carson Desrosiers said, his No. 11 team done at 11-8. “Credit to Nashua South. They’ve won eight of nine, and they’re really rolling as well as anyone in the state.”

South was rolling up by as many as 16 in the second quarter before Windham got it down to 12, 32-20, by the end of the half. But Windham went scoreless for the first 5:24 of the third and the Panthers took advantage, up 49-23 after three.

“It’s a 12-point game, right, the ceiling hasn’t caved in yet,” Desrosiers said. “We had a couple of opportunities to get it to single digits, but the shots unfortunately didn’t fall.”

And one of the reasons was the two-way play of Francisco Rodriguez, who scored 11 of his 20 points in that third period and frustrated Windham’s Tyler Jordan, holding him to eight points while Sam Roldoulis led the Jags with 10. Jordan was a spark in the Jags’ 74-60 regular season win over the Panthers back on Jan. 16.

“What I really liked about (Rodriguez), Francisco, we challenged him, because No. 5 (Jordan) really hurt us in the first game,” Mazerolle said. “And ‘Francisco, he’s yours, shut him down.’ And he did. And he’s so quick, very few people can stay in front of him, and he just kept getting to the rim.”

The Panthers held the Jags to a whopping 35 fewer points than the last meeting, and they’ve been rolling, their only loss since Jan. 30 being an 81-77 loss at Dover. They were 4-6 at one point.

What’s changed?

“Definitely our intensity and our hustle,” Lemire said. “It’s changed a lot. Josh Tripp returning, he definitely brought some tenacity to our team and made us more tough. And we’ve just been able to play more as a team.”

Obviously, Tripp’s from knee issues has helped, especially defensively. But Mazerolle points to something else: that loss on Jan. 30 to arch-rival Nashua North.

“We aren’t where we are if we don’t lose to North, Mazerolle said. “The best two practices of the year were after North, that really catapulted us.”

Nashua South’s Josh Tripp goes up for two away from Windham’s Tyler Jordan (5) during Wednesday night’s Division I prelim at the Belanger Gym. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Meanwhile, last night in the first eight minutes Lemire had reminded the Panthers of, dare they say, a sharpshooter named Caruso who graduated last year and left quite a legacy.

“There are few people I can say even come close to the ballpark of taking as many shots as Josh Caruso did over the years,” Mazerolle said. “Shane is a gym rat, he puts the effort in, he deserves that.”

Now it’s on to Bedford Saturday evening, vs. a Bulldog team that would love to avenge a stunning 68-65 loss to South right after that North game.

“There’s only one thing harder than beating Bedford once in a season,” Mazerolle said, “and that’s beating Bedford twice in a season – in their gym.”