Nashua South's Jack Ninteau gets back to first in time before the tag by Alvirne's Brady Mitchell during Tuesday's all-area Division I clash at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – It’s hard to imagine a game early in the second week of the high school baseball regular season as a a must win, but that’s exactly how it felt to the Nashua South Panthers at Holman Stadium on Tuesday.

Actually, both the Panthers and Alvirne Broncos needed this one badly, each coming into it winless. It was South, however, that was able to smile after a 5-2 win that makes it 1-3.

“It feels fantastic, we needed that,” Panthers coach James Gaj said. “The first win of the season, there’s a lot of pressure with that. Once you do that, you can take some of the pressure off, and go ahead and start just playing for the rest of the season.”

The Broncos (0-5) would love to do that. They’ve gotten off to horrendous starts the last three years, and it’s basically derailed their recent seasons and could again. They got a good six-inning pitching performance from Brody Buja, but committed four errors on the day, three of them leading to four unearned runs – three in the first inning.

“The defense hurt us, we dropped five catchable balls,” Broncos coach Colton Houle said. “We haven’t been able to prevent the big inning. You take away that first inning. … Buja did his job. He gave up one earned run. He was on. Pitching to contact. But our defense, we weren’t ready to play a game today.”

Buja unfortunately started the mistakes with an errant pickoff throw, and as Houle mentioned, balls in the air were a problem, especially in the infield. South’s Jayden Delanoy scored on a dropped pop by Broncos shortstop Gavin Baviello and then the big blow was a two-run triple to left center by Brady O’Connor that made it a 3-0 game. That’s all South would need, but they added another on an infield hit by Jacoby Caissie, a bloop that seemed catchable. A dropped outfield fly made it 5-0 in the second.

“You take advantage of mistakes, you go ahead and win the game,” Gaj said. “We try to make all these fancy things out of baseball these days. But you know what? Throw the ball, catch the ball, hit the ball.”

Nashua South’s Max Demers pitched a complete game in the Panthers’ 5-2 win over local rival Alvirne at Holman Stadium on Tuesday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

The Panthers did all three – especially throw it, via the arm of complete-game starter Max Demers. Demers allowed two runs on five hits, fanning five and walking just two. He was touched up for both Bronco runs in the fourth on an RBI hit by Memphis Beach and a great double steal by Paul Millette and Logan Orr. With Brendon Doughty a lefty starter and Demers a righty, it’s a great one-two punch atop the Panther rotation.

“That was the plan, that’s what we’re hoping,” Gaj said. “Those are two building blocks and we hope the rest fall in around them.

“We needed (Demers) today to go ahead and do a job and he did. He put the team on his back, he threw strikes, he competed, and that’s what we needed out of him. He knew it, so he’s our guy.”

“We were just really hungry for this one,” Demers said. “We were mentally preparing all day at school, the night before, this was a must-have win after the tough loss (to Bishop Guertin) the night before. Just trusted the guys behind me, throw strikes and it clearly worked out.”

Demers noted that Alvirne was hungry too, so South had to work that much harder. The Broncos are off until Monday when they return to Holman for a breakfast at the ballpark with Nashua North, game time at 10 a.m.

“We’ll turn it around,” Houle said. “It’s a young group of guys. We just have to bring the intensity. We have to be ready to go from the get-go. We’re not good enough to take an inning off.”

Alvirne starting pitcher Brody Buja delivers a pitch during Tuesday’s all-local clash vs. Nashua South at Holman Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)