Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua South's Jason Compoh bears down on Alvirne quarterback Kyle Gora during the Panthers's 47-0 win Friday night at Stellos Stadium.

NASHUA – There’s been a lot of temperature taking around the region these days.

Well, Thursday Nashua High School South football coach Scott Knight took the collective temperature of his team, and liked the results.

“What I saw in practice this week, I said ‘I think we might explode tomorrow night, I like what I’m seeing all over,'” Panthers coach Scott Knight said.

Knight was right, as the Panthers, after two losses to start the season, dominated the Alvirne Broncos basically from start to finish Friday night in a 47-0 win at chilly Stellos Stadium.

South senior quarterback Chris Keefe threw for two scores and ran for 126 yards and two more TDs, and the 1-2 Panther attack looked more what the players and coaches are used to seeing, after being held to a touchdown each in the first two weeks.

“I think this week we were a lot more confident coming in,” Keefe said. “The morale actually increased a lot. We were much more of unit than we were last week.”

Of course, the 0-3 Broncos are in a tough situation, basically forced to move up to Divison I in a year in which they were going to rebuild anyway. The results have been tough, as they’ve been outscored 128-18 in three games.

“That was a team (South) we thought we could play win,” Alvirne coach Tarek Rothe said. “Their athleticism, their speed, their size, and their toughness, it was too much for our youth and inexperience.”

A Keefe 1-yard TD plunge capped a seven-play, 55-yard drive for an early 7-0 South lead. The Panthers survived a turnover (fumble)on their next possession, and took a 13-0 lead with 9:16 left in the half on a Keefe 24-yard TD strike to Jaden Murphy.

Two TDs in the final 1:36 left no doubt.

Murphy picked off a Kyle Gora pass and the Panthers converted it into a TD on Jason Compoh’s 9-yard run with 1:36 left in the half to help make it 20-0. Compoh rushed for 85 yards on the night.

Lo and behold, the Panthers got the ball back on their own 9 with 48 seconds left. Take a knee and go in to the break up 20, right?

Nope. Instead, they marched 91 yards in six plays, Keefe finding Connor Rowsell up the seam for a 25-yard TD strike with six seconds left before the half. Evan Wilson’s PAT kick made it 27-0.

“We all thought we were going to do it,” said Keefe, whose 24-yard run on the drive’s first play set the tone. “A knee was in the conversation, but all of us didn’t want to, we knew we could drive the field and score. … The score at the end of the half really helped, hyped us up.”

“They kept playing, we stopped,” Rothe said. “We thought the half was over. We can’t afford to do that.”

Keefe added an 8-yard TD run on the Panthers’ first possession of the second half to help make it 34-0, and the second unit added two scores.

“We had to put one together,” Knight said. “We didn’t defende the perimeter well in weeks one and two, we tweaked a couple things personnel wise.”

The Panthers held the Broncos to 143 yards on offense. Offensively Keefe completed 5 of 10 passes for 102 yards and his two TDs, giving him 228 yards of offense on the night.

“He threw some pretty good balls tonight, but we were by no means perfect,” he said. “We’ve got a real young offensive line and they got better tonight.

“I watched (the Broncos). They were pretty game against the teams they played. And their quarterback’s good, Gora can do some things. I was real proud of our money down defense. I think we had four fourth down stops.”

Nothing wrong with Knight’s thermometer, that’s for sure.

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