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# ConVal football has postseason on the brain
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/conval-football-postseason-brain/
- Published: 2016-10-11T13:00:18.000Z
- Updated: 2016-10-11T13:00:18.000Z
- Description: There was no coach speak to be found from ConVal High School football coach Paul Landau when someone brought up the P-word Saturday afternoon. Many high school football coaches would have shied away from the question of playoffs, using the old "one-game-at-a-time" cliche, especially with three weeks
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division II, ConVal, football, Hollis Brookline, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

There was no coach speak to be found from ConVal High School football coach Paul Landau when someone brought up the P-word Saturday afternoon.

Many high school football coaches would have shied away from the question of playoffs, using the old "one-game-at-a-time" cliche, especially with three weeks still to go in the regular season.

Instead, Landau embraced it.

"We've been talking about playoffs all year," the third-year Cougars coach said. "It's going to be really tough to make it. We're in a very good position with an inside track. I think 6-3 is where you're going to see some tiebreak situations going on."

After beating Hollis Brookline 36-32 on Saturday, the Cougars (5-1) are alone in second place in the Division II South Conference and would be the fifth seed in the tournament if it started this week. It's not a familiar place for ConVal to be, with its last playoff appearance coming in 2009, but this isn't a familiar group of Cougars, as they showed Saturday.

ConVal lost starting quarterback Dan Spezzaferri after a pair of hits to the head, and also saw running backs Graham Parker and Scott Stanley leave the game in the first half with injuries.

That left sophomore Keenan Wilson to take over at quarterback - his first non-mopup varsity experience - along with sophomore Zachary Obuchowski at running back.

All Wilson did was complete 12 of 17 passes for 170 yards, with two touchdowns and two interceptions, and twice led ConVal back from a deficit in the fourth quarter.

"I'm very confident in Keenan Wilson," Landau said. "We've been fortunate enough with the way that we've played that he's gotten some reps in the second half of games. He's just a smart, hard-working kid. He understands the offense really well.

"Dan is an outstanding quarterback, but Keenan is a kid that we feel confident about. We ran the ball a little bit more in the second half, but we still threw every single pass that we had in our playbook because we just had confidence in him to go in and do the job. It's exactly the same as JV, you’ve just got bigger guys protecting you."

Wilson also had two big receivers to throw to in seniors Isaac Bacon (eight catches, 149 yards, three touchdowns) and Liam Baldwin (eight, 83, one).

While Wilson's 57-yard touchdown pass to Bacon gave the Cougars the lead for good with three minutes remaining, the pair each made other big plays in the fourth quarter to get ConVal the win.

Down 26-21 late in the third, the Cougars started a drive at their own 44 and needed to get something going after Wilson had been picked off on the two previous possessions.

Facing a fourth-and-4 at HB's 39, Wilson found Bacon, who took a hard hit and held on for a 19-yard gain to the 20-yard line. Four plays later, facing fourth-and-2, Wilson ran 6 yards to give ConVal a first-and-goal at the HB 6.

Two plays later, Wilson called his own number again, scoring on a 5-yard run to give the Cougars the lead, and he found James Stewart on the two-point conversion to make it 29-26.

Each team scored on its next drive to put ConVal up 36-32, and the Cougars made a stop defensively, but had to punt the ball back to HB with about a minute left to play. Bacon executed a coffin corner kick to perfection, pining the Cavaliers at their own 2-yard line with 42 seconds to play.

"We talked about it and if it goes in the end zone, we're only talking about seven yards of field position, but part of it was burning a few seconds off the play clock," Landau said. "I told Isaac 'I need you to do this, just pooch it.' He said I'm going to aim for that pylon, and he stuck the landing. It was a one-in-a-million shot."