The best example of how tough Division I was last season might be the Nashua High School South football team.
Coming off a championship season, the Panthers returned a handful of young, talented players – including quarterback Keith Farkas – but injuries and close loses drop South to 3-5 in the division and out of the postseason.
The good news for this season is that the Panthers are year older, and healthy heading into the season. The bad news – the division hasn’t gotten any easier.
Last year’s finalists, Salem and Nashua North, are expected to be in the mix. Pinkerton, Manchester Central and Londonderry seem to be in it every year. Manchester Memorial has improved and Exeter joins the party as well, having moved up from Division II.
“Hopefully we’re in the mix,” South coach Scott Knight said. “There will probably be a couple of good teams who don’t make the playoffs. We didn’t make the playoffs and we could have beat anybody on any given week if we had played four quarters. But you have to play really, really well to make the playoffs.”
The Panthers should continue to play well on offense. Despite losing Nick Haskell, Nick Frederickson and Pete Gill, South returns a strong offensive group that averaged 34 points a game in the division last year.
Farkas starts his third year on the varsity at quarterback and four starters – Ian Parson, Cody Mawn, Brad Carrier and John Bieren – return along the offensive line in front of him. Nick Marquis will also start on the line and Julier Rivera, a transfer from Lowell, will provide some depth.
Nick Puleo and Brandon Gauthier will try to fill the slot position occupied by Haskell last year, while Connor Leary and Ray Ramos will fill in for Frederickson. Nilsson Basora also returns at the wide out position and juniors Derek Paradis and Armond McRae return after seeing a lot of time as sophomores.
“We think we’ll be able to put points on the board, because we have a lot of those kids back,” Knight said. “We expected to look pretty good on offense and we’re where we want to be. Defense was going to be the big question mark.”
That was the problem for the Panthers a year ago, as they allowed an average of 28.1 points a game last year. In their five division loses, South scored an average of 29.6 points, but gave up almost 40.
A new commitment to that side of the ball – and to overall team chemistry – has the coaching staff feeling good about the defense’s chances of improving.
“We learned a lot and we totally refocused,” Knight said. “I’ve always been proud of our kids and our coaches do a great job of getting the most out of our kids, and I was embarrassed to say last year, we did not reach our potential for one reason or another. We did a lot of soul searching. I thought we did some good things last year.
“We’ve got a new defense as far as personnel goes. We’ve got a lot of unproven guys. So far we like how they’re flying around.”
Up front seniors Luke Beliveau and Allen O’Dell will be joined by junior Brandon Dupray. Mike Brannen moves from nose tackle to linebacker this season to join Dan McMormack, Jeff Carmona, Chris Thistle and John Bieren. In the secondary, Paradis will return to his safety position, and he’ll be joined by Ramos, McCrae, Puleo and Connor Rogowsky.
While a handful of those players were hurt throughout last season, some, like Beliveau, McMormack and Thistle, were on the field during the Panthers’ championship season two years ago.
“We have a lot of kids who are seniors who were on the field with that team,” Knight said. “Our goal is just to play well and we’ll see where the chips fall. It’s going to be a tough league.”
The Panthers start out with a non-division game against Portsmouth on Saturday, and then jump into division play by hosting Pinkerton on Sept. 10.