Hawks try to snap skid against Raiders

Losses don’t get much tougher than the one the Merrimack High School football team suffered last week against Keene.

The Tomahawks led 14-7 at halftime, but were tied at 14 with the Blackbirds in the fourth quarter when disaster struck.

With the ball on their own 8-yard line, the Tomahawks tried to run an option play, but quarterback Zach Harris’s pitch to Jackson King was batted down. The ball rolled into the end zone, where King recovered it and was tackled for a safety.

Merrimack (2-3 in Division II, 3-3 overall) got the ball back twice after that, but both drives resulted in an interception and a turn-over-on-downs.

“It was a heartbreaker,” Merrimack coach Joe Battista said. “We just were not able to get the ball moving in the second half for whatever reason, and that was the difference in the game.”

Perhaps the most encouraging thing for the Tomahawks was the play of the defense, especially late in the game.

After giving up big plays and struggling to get off the field the last few weeks, Merrimack stepped up defensively against Keene. The Tomahawks shut down the Blackbirds after the safety and set the offense up with good field position on both occasions.

“Our defense stepped up and made some nice stands,” Battista said.

Merrimack has now lost three straight after opening the season with three wins in a row. While the Tomahawks aren’t panicking, they know it’s time to get back on track if they’re going to have a shot at the playoffs.

“We knew come Monday we were going to have to regroup,” Battista said. “We’ve been taking it one week at a time and we’ll continue to do that but at this point, I felt it was important to talk about the whole picture overall, what can still happen and what we can still achieve. We had a great half hour to talk and at the end of that, I think everybody felt pretty good.”

It starts this week for Merrimack with a game at Spaulding of Rochester at 7 p.m. on Friday. After opening the season with a non-division win over Pembroke, the Red Raiders have dropped five straight and haven’t won a divisional game since Oct. 22, 2007.

“I’m not concerned with us overlooking (Spaudling),” Battista said. “We know we need to come out and play our game and take care of ourselves. I don’t think being focused will be an issue. All we can do is take care of ourselves.”

With its next two games against Spaulding and Manchester West (1-5), Merrimack can draw back even in the standings with two wins. After that, the Tomahawks have a non-division game against Nashua North before the regular-season finale against Winnacunnet.

“Anybody can beat anybody. The teams are so close, you can’t try to figure out what might happen. The best thing to do is take care of yourself and when the dust clears, we’ll take a look at the standings.”