Panthers run past Titans

NASHUA – It wasn’t quite a track meet, but there sure was a lot of running going on Friday night at Stellos Stadium.

The Nashua High School South football team rushed for 417 yards on the legs of junior running back Derek Paradis and senior quarterback Keith Farkas, and outmuscled Nashua North in a 38-21 victory in Division I action.

Paradis had a game-high 212 yards on 24 carries while Farkas added 103 yards and a touchdown on the ground as South put up 511 yards of offense.

“We got pushed around,” North coach Jason Robie said. “I’ve been saying all along, when Nashua South decides to run the football primarily, they’re going to hurt some people. You saw that tonight. They pushed us all over the field. We tackled poorly, we executed poorly and it was just too much for us to overcome.”

Armond McRae ran for another 62 yards and two touchdowns and Farkas passed for 94 yards and had an 8-yard touchdown pass to Nilsson Basora in the first quarter.

But on this night, it wasn’t about South’s passing game.

“We knew we could run a lot of stuff,” South coach Scott Knight said. “We thought we could move them off the ball up front. When you can do that, you can do the things you want to do. I thought that was the difference.”

[To see or purchase photos from this game, go here.]

The Panthers (3-1 in division, 4-2 overall) led 21-7 at halftime, having put up 21 straight points after North scored on its first drive. The Titans (3-2, 3-3) went 80 yards on seven plays and took a 7-0 lead on an 11-yard run by Andre Williams, who finished with just 66 yards on 20 carries.

South responded to the opening score immediately, as a big kick return by Brandon Gauthier set up the Panthers near midfield. Nine plays later, Farkas found Basora on third-and-8 and the senior receiver darted through the North defense to find the end zone.

The Titans struggled to move the ball for the rest of the half, as the Panthers forced North to punt on its final four possessions before halftime.

On each of those drives, South did not allow North to pick up any yardage on third down, a big difference from where the Panthers’ defense was a few weeks ago.

“We have some really good athletes on the field,” Knight said. “Some of those kids who are playing more defense, they’re good athletes. We have to use different technique. The kids are starting to respond to it. You really need some athletes to run it, but you need athletes to win.”

The Panthers looked like they might put the game away on their first drive of the second half, using a 50-yard run by Paradis and an encroachment penalty on North to get a first-and-goal from the Titans’ 5.

But North’s defense held, dropping Farkas for a loss on fourth down to take over at its own 2-yard line.

Runs of 31 and 11 yards by Jahmar Gathright, who finished with 142 yards on nine carries, moved North to midfield, where Brandon Karkhanis hit Anton Marinchik for 11 yards and then Eric Muite for another 37 to the South 3. From there, Williams went in, but North missed the extra point to make it a 21-13 game.

Again, South answered. Farkas hooked up with Gauthier on a 35-yard pass play and Paradie scampered for 12 yards to set up McRae’s second rushing touchdown of the night. Less than two minutes after the Titans had cut the lead to eight, South made it a 28-13 game with 5:19 left in the third.

“Any time you give up a score after something like that it’s difficult,” Robie said. “You prepare all week to stop what they’re going to run. If I told you that we hadn’t prepared for power and option all week, I’d be lying to you. That’s what everybody runs against us. We just couldn’t stop it.”

North added a 4-yard touchdown pass from Karkhanis to Marinchik to make it a 38-21 game with less than two minutes to go, but the Titans continued to stall on offense.

“The big thing for us is we wanted to shore up our defense and play better and I think we’re doing that right now,” Knight said.