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# Running game was key again in North-South battle
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/running-game-was-key-again-in-north-south-battle/
- Published: 2010-11-16T06:24:11.000Z
- Updated: 2010-11-16T06:24:11.000Z
- Description: Jason Robie knew if his Nashua High School North football team was going to get beat by Nashua South, it wasn’t going to be in the same manor the Titans lost to the Panthers during the regular season. In that game, North’s defense was gouged by the Panthers run game, as Derek Paradis rushed for 212
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division I, Fall Sports, football, Nashua North, Nashua South, playoffs, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/southnorthfball1113-nn30sdef.jpg "SouthNorthFball1113 NN30&Sdef")

Jason Robie knew if his Nashua High School North football team was going to get beat by Nashua South, it wasn’t going to be in the same manor the Titans lost to the Panthers during the regular season.

In that game, North’s defense was gouged by the Panthers run game, as Derek Paradis rushed for 212 yards and Keith Farkas added 103.

This time around, the Titans were going to stop the run, no matter the consequences.

“We played a five-man front because they really ate us up on the run in the first meeting,” Robie said. “We knew we had to stop the run first. We put our best defensive backs on our best receivers and rolled the dice. If they were going to beat us vertically, so be it.”

The strategy worked. South eventually finished with 213 yards on the ground, but 121 of those came in the second half, after the Panthers had had a chance to make adjustments. Paradis had 110 yards and Armond McRae added 73 yards, but Farkas had just 2.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/southnorthfball1113-nn8ns3.jpg "SouthNorthFball1113 NN8&NS3")

“We just couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively,” South coach Scott Knight said. “We had some opportunities, we just didn’t get it done. We weren’t executing very well. We had a number of things that were there, we just weren’t executing.”

The Panthers first four possessions ended on a punt, an interception, a turnover on downs and another punt, respectively. South finally got on the board early in the second quarter, but by then, it was already down 20-7.

“We knew it would take them until halftime to figure out what we were trying to do and to have that bit of a cushion there, was extremely helpful,” Robie said. “We had to put more guys in the box and force Keith Farkas to beat us with his arm. They did a few times.”

Those times didn’t come until the second half, as Farkas went 0-for-8 passing in the first half. The senior quarterback bounced back by going 10-for-13 for 146 yards and two touchdowns in the second half.

But then South struggled at stopping North.

“We answered the bell each and every time,” Robie said. “I like the versatility of our defense. We bounced around in a couple of looks today, trying to change things up a little. We really didn’t do a whole lot that first matchup and South was able to overpower us.”

The defense wasn’t the only unit doing the overpowering.

After rushing for just 66 yards in the regular-season meeting, North’s Andre Williams went off against South, rushing for 279 yards and five touchdowns.

Williams started and ended the game with a bang. Jahmar Gathright returned the game’s opening kickoff for North to the Titans’ 41-yard line, and on the first play from scrimmage, Williams busted up the middle and sprinted to the end zone on a 59-yard touchdown run.

Then, with North up by a touchdown and facing a third-and-4 at its own 46 with about two minutes left, Williams ripped off a 54-yard scoring jaunt to effectively end the game.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bc/58/bc5866d0-9fd9-4113-b959-670d6f16471d/content/images/www-nh-highschoolsports-com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/southnorthfball1113-ns2-4.jpg "SouthNorthFball1113 NS2-4")

“Andre is a very good football player,” Robie said. “Fortunately, he has a very good line blocking in front of him as well. There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle. You can’t focus on only him. He ran very hard today.”

Williams’ game overshadowed the performance turned in by Paradis, who scored three of South’s five touchdowns.

After rushing for 36 yards and a touchdown in the first half, Paradis ran for another 74 and a score in the second. But perhaps even bigger than the rushing yards was his 87-yard return for a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half.

McRae also turned in a solid game for South, adding 32 receiving yards on four catches to his 73 yards on the ground.

“It’s always tough to beat a team twice,” Knight said. “We did some of the things we thought we could do, we just came up a few stops short on defense in the second half. If we get those stops … they couldn’t stop us in the second half. But we couldn’t stop them either.”