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# Souhegan returns home to host Goffstown
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/souhegan-returns-home-to-host-goffstown/
- Published: 2010-09-17T17:51:34.000Z
- Updated: 2010-09-17T17:51:34.000Z
- Description: The Souhegan High School football team may not recognize the field when the Sabers take on Goffstown Friday night, even though the game is being played in Amherst. For the first time since Thanksgiving Day, a football game – pre, post or regular-season – will take place at Souhegan. The Sabers spent
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division III-IV, Fall Sports, Division III, football, Souhegan, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

The Souhegan High School football team may not recognize the field when the Sabers take on Goffstown Friday night, even though the game is being played in Amherst.

For the first time since Thanksgiving Day, a football game – pre, post or regular-season – will take place at Souhegan. The Sabers spent the entire preseason, plus the first two weeks of the regular season, away from home.

“We’re going to be like ‘where are we?’ ” Souhegan coach Mike Beliveau said. “We have been, every competition this year, every game and every scrimmage has been on the road. We are ready to play at home. I hope we take our road warriors mentality into our performance at home.”

The Sabers have already played two tough games away from home, rallying from 19 points down in the third quarter to beat Londonderry before putting on a passing clinic in a 23-14 win over Portsmouth last week.

Quarterback Mike Luks set three school single-game records against the Clippers – passing completions (29), passing attempts (45) and passing yards (403).

“They took away some things for our ground game and forced us to be a little one-dimensional,” Beliveau said. “You pick and choose your poison and they committed a certain amount of bodies to stop our ground game.”

Although the Clippers have played the Sabers more than anyone else in the last two years, they hadn’t seen much of Luks. Taking away the ground game was something that any good high school coach would do, according to Beliveau.

“I think that most high school teams, no matter who is at quarterback, is going to say that you usually win games when you stop the other teams ground game,” he said. “You’ve got to pass protect, you’ve got throw accurately, you’ve got to not have drops, no fumbles after the catch. Most teams will say beat us with the pass and we kind of had to beat them with the pass.”

The Sabers may have to do more of the same against a Goffstown team that is one loss away from having its back against the wall. The Grizzlies, a preseason favorite in Division III, fell to Bedford last week and 0-2 could just about end their playoff hopes.

“They’ve got to come in fired up and feel like, not that their season is on the line, but that this is big for them,” Beliveau said. “They don’t want to drop to 0-2 in the division. Now they have to worry about making the playoffs.”

This isn’t the same Goffstown team that Souhegan has beaten by a combined score of 115-18 in the last three meetings. The Grizzlies are a physical bunch, and after watching them play against Bedford’s spread offense last week, Beliveau knows they’ve got a few more football players than in years past.

“They’re a formidable opponent,” he said. “I think they’re up to a dozen solid kids. This is a team that was very physical against Salem in the preseason. They were excited and confident about that. They lost to a good Concord team and then they lost to a good Bedford team, so they have not had a soft schedule.”

The Sabers and Grizzlies will kickoff at 7 p.m. Friday.