Hawks return home to face Blackbirds
Joe Battista wants to see the Merrimack High School football team do some time traveling.
The Tomahawks coach wants his players to go back, back to the way they were playing defense in the first three weeks of the season.
Since opening the year with three victories, Merrimack has dropped its last two, including last week’s 31-21 loss to Timberlane, to fall to 2-2 in Division II (3-2 overall).
“We need to get back to tackling the way we were a couple of weeks ago,” Battista said. “We took a step back defensively. We’ve got to get back to playing disciplined football. What that means is going back to playing the way we’re capable of playing our assignments. We got away from that last week and that was a problem.”
Why the Tomahawks got away from that may be as simple as those first three games.
“Maybe in practice you become a little complacent,” Battista said. “The intensity that was there early on goes down a little bit. Even though you’re talking about not letting it happening, and you don’t think it’s happening, it’s happening. Being in that situation is new to us.”
Merrimack is hoping to right the ship against an undefeated team. The Tomahawks will play host to Keene (3-0 in division, 5-0 overall) at 7 p.m. on Friday.
The Blackbirds come in having won their three divisional games by an average of almost 32 points, but those three wins have come against Alvirne, Manchester West and Spaulding, teams that are a combined 0-11 in the division.
“I don’t care who they’ve played, they’re legit,” Battista said. “They’re big, they’re physical, they’ve got good skill positions and they hit hard. They’re going to line up and play smashmouth football. They’re going to try to overpower you. They have a big running back and they like to run right at you and set up the play-action pass game.”
The Tomahawks had some success of their own throwing the football against Timberlane. Quarterback Zach Harris put the ball in the air, passing for 123 and a touchdown and also add a rushing touchdown of his own.
“We have complete confidence in Zach and his arm,” Battista said. “We’re a run-first offense; I’m not saying anything that no body doesn’t know. In the preseason, I did say we had the skill people to put the ball up and if people are going to overcommit to stopping our option game, we’re going to take advantage of it.”
While Battista likes to keep the players focused on a week-to-week basis, he knows the game against Keene is going to go a long way toward determining how many more weeks Merrimack gets to play.
At 2-2, the Tomahawks sit outside of a playoff spot, with games remaining against Spaulding and Manchester West before a non-division game against Nashua North and the season finale at Winnacunnet.
“This is the biggest game of the year, just like last year was the biggest game of the year,” Battista said. “This is another one of those teams we’re all kind of log jammed in there. (A loss) would really put us in a tough situation for the rest of the season.”
The teams kick off at 7 p.m. on Friday in Merrimack.
