Merrimack football upsets Nashua North in D1 quarterfinals

NASHUA - Kip Jackson knew that Saturday's Division I quarterfinal between the Merrimack and Nashua North high school football teams would be different than their regular-season meeting.

The undefeated Titans were without junior quarterback Curtis Harris, a Player-of-the-Year candidate who hurt his knee when the teams met two weeks ago.

The Tomahawks were still going to have to take advantage of the majority of their opportunities, but for most of the first half, Merrimack repeatedly came up short, despite having the ball on the Titans' half of the field for most of the first half.

Finally, faced with its worst field position of the day, Merrimack got its offense going. A 10-play, 80-yard drive ended with a 16-yard touchdown run by Devin Wood, and one play after North's third lost fumble of the half, Kyle Crampton hit Jake Trahan for a 49-yard touchdown.

The No. 4 Tomahawks withstood everything the top-seeded Titans had in the second half to hang on for a 26-7 win at Stellos Stadium in Nashua. Merrimack advances to the D1 semifinals for the second year in a row, and the third time in four years, where the Tomahawks will face No. 2 Exeter on Nov. 16.

"I thought our kids responded well to adversity," Jackson said. "It felt like we should have been up by four touchdowns in the first half with their turnovers, but we just couldn’t capitalize and finish drives. That was one of the keys we talked about beforehand, trying to get up by at least two scores and putting the pressure on them to throw the ball or do something they’re not used to."

Crampton, a sophomore, finished the day 11 of 17 passing for 190 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, with both scores going to Trahan, who had four catches for 92 yards. The two connected for a 28-yard touchdown pass on Merrimack's second possession, when Crampton found Trahan opened behind the North secondary.

On the second touchdown, Crampton threw a low ball that got by two North defenders, but Trahan was able to snag before it hit the turf and he raced to the end zone, giving Merrimack (7-3) a 19-0 lead with 1:07 left in the first half.

"That was huge," Jackson said. "It was a great ball by Kyle and Jake did a great job of going to get it and then finishing the play. That ended up being a huge score. If North came out (in the second half) and we didn’t have that touchdown, there would have been a lot more pressure on us."

The Titans (9-1) regrouped at halftime and opened the second half with a six-play, 58-yard drive, getting a 33-yard pass play from Derek Finlay to Lucas Cunningham to help set up Jayden Espinal's 1-yard touchdown run.

Espinal, who was filling in for Harris on both sides of the ball, ran for 128 yards on 27 carries, but lost two of North's three fumbles and threw an interception at the end of the game. Anthony Greene added 36 yards rushing, but also lost a fumble, while Cunningham had three catches for 41 yards.

"(Espinal) played his butt off," North coach Dante Laurendi said. "You can’t dig yourself that big of a hole. Three turnovers in the first half didn’t help. These guys keep you on your toes, they keep the ball moving, they made some key plays when they needed to. We got a little momentum going in the second half, we just couldn’t keep it going."

After Espinal's touchdown, North's Justin Edwards picked off Crampton to give the Titans the ball at their own 11-yard line. North was able to move into Merrimack territory, but the offense stalled and the Titans had to punt.

North's defense forced a three-and-out, and a short punt by Wood gave the Titans the ball at Merrimack's 39-yard line. North got the ball to the 10, but turned it over on downs. While the Titans' defense held again, Wood changed field position with a booming punt.

The Merrimack senior booted the ball inside the North 10 and the Tomahawks downed it at the 7-yard line. The Titans couldn't get a first down and Merrimack took advantage of great field position this time, getting an 8-yard scoring run from Jared Dyer (92 total yards) to make it 26-7 with 4:24 to play.

"That was a great punt," Jackson said of Wood's kick. "That was one of the turning points in the game. Who knew a punt could do that?

"He’s one of those kids, he can punt, he can kick, he can throw. After his first punt wasn’t probably up to his standards, to come out with that punt, that was big for us."

Merrimack will go on the road again Saturday to face Exeter in the semifinals; the Blue Hawks won the regular-season meeting 41-7 on Sept. 20.