Merrimack running back Joe Giampietro has had an injury-plagued career, but the senior appears to be fully healthy for the 2014 season. He has compiled 146 yard and a pair of touchdowns through two games, including Merrimack’s 16-13 win Saturday night over Bishop Guertin, in which he made the decisive score in the closing minutes of the game.

He seems primed to get the bulk of the Tomahawks’ carries as the season progresses.

“It’s nice for him because this is the first time in two years that he’s actually cleared game two,” Merrimack coach Dante Laurendi said. “So that was a victory in itself, getting him through game two. I’m sure it weighed on him mentally.”

After carrying the ball only 11 times in his team’s opening-day victory over Keene, Giampietro saw his usage increase in game two. He carried the ball twenty times, including 12 second-half rushes (his teammates combined for 14 carries).

Most importantly, he led the fourth-quarter drive that ended with him scoring the game-winning touchdown.

“To have him do that is great and then to cap it off, we’ll take it,” Laurendi said. “Not that I’d complain if someone else scored.”

Heads up for BG, Merrimack

A storyline in the Cardinals’ loss to Merrimack on Saturday night featured penalties, particularly the infractions for helmet-on-helmet hits. The Tomahawks were called for the violation in the second quarter, while Bishop Guertin earned the penalty on their opponent’s eventual game-winning drive.

“I know that’s a big point of emphasis with [the referees],” said Bishop Guertin coach Travis Cote. “It’s tough for a kid going down to make a tackle. The offensive guy drops his head and they hit helmet-to-helmet. How does the defensive player avoid that?”

While the penalty ultimately assisted the Tomahawks in their victory, Laurendi agrees that it’s a tough call for the refs to make.

“They’ve been aggressively calling that,” he said. “We were all warned. A lot of it’s not intentional but sometimes you can’t avoid it. You’re probably going to see it a lot this year. It comes and goes with the breaks of the game and we’ll be happy to take that one.”

Alvirne establishes its identity with victory

When Alvirne High School ran Nashua High School North off its own field Saturday afternoon, one thing was for sure in the mind of first-year coach Tim Walsh: his Broncos have a new identity.

“They’re pretty excited,” Walsh said. “This is a big win. I told them that this game here goes a long way in establishing their identity as a team, as players, and as a school. They really played well. They came to play. There were a few mistakes here and there, but overall, I thought for the second game of the season the kids executed, played with passion and played under control.”

Recipe to defend the Titans made public

What Alvirne’s defense did Saturday afternoon, aside from keeping Nashua North’s T-formation ground attack in check, was let the rest of Division I know just how to stop the Titans.

North coach Jason Robie admitted as much following the Titans 27-0 loss to the Broncos at Stellos Stadium.

“That team across the field was ready to play,” Robie said. “They came out flying high, full of emotion and deserved to win that game today. They absolutely took it too us top to bottom. We didn’t have any answers when they put nine guys in the box, and quite frankly, when you do that to us and we can’t throw, that’s what you get. I think you just saw the recipe for what teams are going to do to us for the rest of the year.”

Just like a baking recipe, measurements and numbers are important.

“The issue was that we have six guys on the line of scrimmage with a split end, and they have nine guys on the line of scrimmage,” Robie said. “It doesn’t matter how big your boys are. It’s a numbers game. Every gap is filled. You know you start to get in your kids heads a little about well jeez what’s my rule, I’ve got my guy and there’s another guy there. The way you beat that is you pass the ball and play-action pass. We threw it a little bit, a very little, but we threw it with some success at times. Then other times we didn’t do a good job, and again that’s something that we probably during the week needed to prepare a little better for. I kind of felt like that was what we were going to see, but I also felt like we would still be able to move the football – kudos to them, because we couldn’t.”

Knight happy with his Panthers’ progression

Did the Nashua High School South football team make a lot of strides despite losing to Pinkerton Academy 29-7 on Friday night?

Coach Scott Knight thinks the Panthers did.

“From where we were a week ago we were very physical,”

Better effort this week. I really believe w going to be fine. I’m not panicing over 0-2 right now. We’re a much better football team than we were a week ago.”

Basically, Knight felt the Panthers controlled the line of scrimmage much better than in the opener against Salem, when they gave up nearly 400 yards of offense. They cut the yardage defensively down by almost 100, and much of that was due to four big Astro scoring runs of 54, 54, 80 and 64 yards. Four plays were the difference.

“We were great up and down the field,” Knight said. “Forced a lot of three-and-outs on them. We hit them hard. I thought we played much more physical than we did a week ago. Much more physical tonight.”

It’s an offense still trying grab an identity, with just two touchdowns in eight quarters.

“We’re finding ourselves a little bit,” Knight said. “We had to get in a groove. We added a couple of things this week that we liked.”

Once again Andrew Decarteret led the Panthers in rushing, this time with 90 yards in 19 carries, while sharing the ball with Colin Morrow and Josh Perry.

“He’s hard-nosed,” he said. “Perry runs hard, Morrow – we have good athletes, we’re going to be OK. I thought we played much better up front, we were much more aggressive, our pass protection was a lot better.

“We saw some things that we liked.”

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