Titans step up on both sides of the ball to beat Astros

DERRY – The Nashua High School North football team is learning from its mistakes.

Three games into the 2010 season, that looks like bad news for the rest of Division I.

Andre Williams ran for 199 yards and three touchdowns and the Titans’ defense held Pinkerton to less than 200 yards on offense in a 33-7 victory over the Astros on Saturday.

As a team, North gained almost 400 yards – 281 of it on the ground – as the Titans got 77 yards rushing and two touchdowns from Jahmar Gathright and another 112 yards through the air from Brandon Karkhanis.

But the biggest play of the day came in a situation that crushed the Titans in the opening game of the season.

Pinkerton (1-1 in division, 2-1 overall) took the kickoff to open the second half and kept the ball for the first 8:06 of the third quarter. The Astros put together a 16-play, 72-yard drive that ended on a 1-yard touchdown plunge by Kevin Davies that cut North’s lead to 14-7.

[For more photos from this game, go here.]

North coach Jason Robie had flashbacks to the Titans’ opening-day loss to Winnacunnet, in which the Warriors took the second-half kickoff and marched down the field for a touchdown.

But this time, the Titans (2-0, 2-1) responded.

On the second play from scrimmage, Williams busted through the middle of the Pinkerton defense and outran everyone once he reached the secondary, going 80 yards to put North up 20-7 just 34 seconds after Davies’s touchdown.

“That’s the difference between now and Week 1,” Robie said. “The exact same thing happened. They went down and scored and momentum changed completely. We learned from that.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we did (lose to Winnacunnet), because we found out what we needed to do and the mistakes we needed to correct. We have good athletes and hard-nosed kids, but we found out a little bit about our character and how we’re supposed to carry ourselves when bad things happen.”

Pinkerton went three-and-out on its next possession, and North followed that with an 11-play, 66-yard drive that ended on Gathright’s 1-yard touchdown run.

“I was talking to someone on that one,” Pinkerton coach Brian O’Reilly said of Williamas’s run. “I turned to one of my assistants and said ‘what was that?’ We aren’t tackling very well. We’re not at the same level that they are and I saw that on film. The only thing I don’t understand is how they lost to Winnacuunet because they manhandled Winnacunnet.”

The Titans could have had more.

North took the opening kickoff and moved down to the Pinkerton 34, but penalties and a sack led to a turnover on downs. On its fourth possession, North again moved into the Pinkerton end of the field, but another sack, this time on third down, stalled the drive.

“I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest, coming in,” Robie said. “We had a pretty good game today. Our kids played well. We made mistakes at times, but things that are correctable. I was pleased with the defense and their poise when they got down toward the goal line. Offensively, I was pleased with the way we were able to grind it out and make the big play when we needed.”

North returns to Stellos Stadium on Friday when it hosts Manchester Central. Pinkerton will host Salem on Saturday.