Perhaps for the first time in their 10 years of battles, the Nashua High School North and South teams will be below .500 (both 1-2) when they clash on Friday night at Stellos Stadium.

And that may make this a bigger game than in recent years. The West Conference is struggling with only Alvirne (2-1) above the .500 mark, but no one wants to lose ground and head-to-head tiebreakers that are so important.

“You’ve got to win the in-conference games, that’s a big one (this Friday),” South coach Scott Knight said after Saturday’s 43-14 romp over Merrimack, although he added, “I’m not even wrapped up in our record. I’m more focused on let’s play better this week than we did last week. We’ve had nine turnovers in three games.”

North coach Jason Robie was talking about how Londonderry’s offense is similar to that of South’s after losing 49-13 on Friday night. But while Lancer quarterback Eric Fairweather is dynamic, Robie and the Titans may now have to prepare for not one, but two South quarterbacks.

On Saturday, the Panthers used both Malik Langa, who started and played all the way in the first two games, and Shayne Holland. Both ran for touchdowns in the win over Merrimack.

“They’re not all that different,” Knight said, adding Holland might have played at quarterback the week before but an arm injury kept him from that spot. “Right now our passing game – everything, sometimes our spacing’s wrong, we had a lot of stuff going on.

“A lot of areas we need to get better at. Hopefully it will evolve into something that’s a little more consistent.”

One player North will have to watch out for is running back Andrew DeCarteret, who after Saturday’s 94 yards on 16 carries, has 303 yards in three games. Needless to say, he’s a Panther key.

“Huge,” Knight said. “Andrew is that kid, we can ride him, as a blocker or a ball carrier. He always gets positive yards, he’s a powerful kid.”

The Titans have their own key back, Myles Cassin-Reed, who ran for 105 yards in the loss to the Lancers. But it wasn’t enough for North to overcome turnovers, penalties and bad tackling.

“Their offense is similar to South’s but we’ll have to do a better job against it next week,” Robie said of Londonderry. “They countered us to death, and unfortunately we didn’t have an answer for it. We gave them 21 points. They (Londonderry) are a great football team.”

Defensively, the Titans have had problems, and Robie doesn’t think the issues are effort, but perhaps “schematic.” In other words, they can be fixed. Another thing that needs to be fixed, he said, is the team’s discipline.

The Titans, after it was ruled they didn’t get across the goal line in a short-yardage situation, were hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that took them out of scoring contention.

“It’s a lesson we have to learn,” Robie said. “You have to be more disciplined and keep your composure.”

Walking wounded for Tomahawks

The question for Merrimack going into next weekend’s game with Alvirne in a non-conference battle of two 2-1 teams is the injury list, mainly, quarterback Justin Grassini, who had to leave in the second half of the loss to South after lowering his head on a carry and taking a hard hit.

It appeared he was given the protocol concussion tests on the sideline but as the score got out of hand he never returned.

“We think he’s going to be OK,” ’Hawks coach Dante Laurendi said. “I think he’s good; now it’s just a case of being sore. We have to wait and see how it is on Monday. He took a head-neck shot. We’ll have to see Monday what the results are.”

What can Laurendi take from a game where his team turned the ball over seven times?

“I was very proud of we kept playing hard,” he said. “We put our defense in tough situations the whole day, but we kept playing hard. We didn’t back down from the (Panthers’) physical (play).”

Mistakes doom Cavaliers

Hollis Brookline had a number of messy mistakes in its 14-13 loss to Sanborn on Saturday. The offense fumbled the ball five times (all were recovered), and there were also a number of botched snaps. One of those snaps came late in the fourth quarter, with the Cavaliers looking to tie the game on an extra point. The snap was a bit high, and Cole Owens attempt was ultimately block by the Indians.

After the game, coach Chris Lones express frustration at his team’s mistakes and lack of focus.

“The second half we moved the ball pretty good,” he said. “The first half I thought we moved the ball pretty good, too. There were just too many mental mistakes. You move the ball 30 yards and you get a bad snap, a holding penalty, a false start, and boom, the next thing you know, the drive has ended. We’ve got to clean that up, and that’s on me.”

Correspondent Ben Levine contributed to this report.

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