Offense rolls as Nashua South football blows past Londonderry (video)

NASHUA - At the beginning of the season, Scott Knight thought he knew what the offense would like for the Nashua High School South football team.

Friday night against Londonderry, the Panthers coach finally saw what he'd been expecting.

South scored on six straight possession, including two in the final three-plus minutes of the first half, and the Panthers picked up a 42-13 win over the Lancers, clinching a playoff berth and the West Conference title for the first time since 2013.

Sean Holland led the way for South (6-2), completing 12 of 19 passes for 169 yards and four touchdowns, at one point connecting on nine straight passes to end the first half, three of which went for touchdowns. Alex Amigo caught two of those scores and finished with 152 yards of offense as the Panthers had 320 of their 413 yards in the first half.

"The team you saw (Friday) is the team we thought we could be," Knight said. "What you saw was a team that was hitting on all cylinders. We’ve been getting better every week, just quietly."

Jarret Bieren and Jaylan Pacheco each had rushing touchdowns, giving South a 15-0 lead, and Taevon Olson and Tony Agor also caught touchdown passes as the Panthers led 35-7 at halftime.

"We have so many weapons and it puts the defense at a disadvantage," Holland said. "They can’t defend everything so as soon as we have a groove somewhere, someone opens up. We have to take advantage of that."

Londonderry (6-2), which clinched a playoff berth last week, got 50 yards rushing and a touchdown from Mike McAlister and Jeffery Wiedenfeld had 93 yards on the ground. Cameron Storace also had a touchdown run on the final play of the game, as the Lancers struggled to keep up with South's offense.

"They’re well-balanced," Londonderry coach Jimmy Lauzon said. "(Holland) can run, he can pass, so that’s scary. There are a lot of teams that can do one or the other, and they can do both. Their pass game scared us more and we told the kids this week they live off the big play."

After South took a 7-0 lead on a 30-yard touchdown run by Bieren, but Londonderry looked poised to answer with a 15-play, 60-yard drive, but the Panthers defense stopped Wiedenfield at the 3-yard line on fourth down.

South marched 97 yards in nine plays, getting into the end zone on a 2-yard run by Pacheco, and Holland found Brendon Frost for the conversion and a 15-0 lead.

Londonderry was forced to punt on its next possession and South scored again, going up 21-0, but the Lancers were able to respond with a 9-play, 63-yard drive that ended on McAlister's 5-yard touchdown run on fourth down.

But Amigo returned the ensuing kickoff 52 yards, and three plays later, he made a diving catch in the end zone for a 27-yard scoring and a 28-7 lead. After another Londonderry punt, South needed just 34 seconds to 65 yards and score again.

"We had that long drive and we didn’t finish it," Lauzon said. "I thought that was demoralizing for us because they then went down and scored. Right before half, we had just scored, it’s our ball coming out (at halftime) and we tell our kickoff team, they’d been great all year, we tell them we need to stuff them and they get a big return. They scored twice and that killed us before half."

The Panthers saw an opportunity to put some distance between themselves and the Lancers, and tried to take advantage.

"We knew we had them on the ropes there," Holland said. "We liked the looks we were getting, so once we had that, we kept piling on as much as we could there."

Londonderry put a drive together to start the third quarter, getting down to the South 11-yard line, but the Lancers turned the ball over on downs. The Panthers put the game away with an 80-yard drive that ended on a 13-yard touchdown pass from Holland to Amigo.

Both teams finish the regular season on Oct. 27, as South takes on Bishop Guertin (1-7) at Stellos Stadium, while Londonderry hosts Salem (8-0).