Telegraph photo by TOM KING Nashua North football coach Dante Laurendi, center, leads the celebration for the titans after their win over Salem in this past Saturday's Division I semis at Stellos Stadium.

NASHUA – The sting often never goes away.

Nashua High School football coach Dante Laurendi will tell you that. He was North’s offensive coordinator under then head coach Jason Robie when the Titans lost back to back Division I championship games in 2009 to Salem and 2010 to Pinkerton.

And now, the Titans are back in the finals for the first time since those games – ironically beating Salem, 33-28, in Saturday’s semifinals.

The Titans will face fellow unbeaten Goffstown Saturday at 1 p.m. at a neutral site offered and both teams agreed to, Bedford High School’s Bulldog Stadium, so fans of both teams can attend. Goffstown won its only title back in 2015. Ironically Grizzlies first year head coach Nick Hammond is a former Titan assistant.

In 2010, Pinkerton edged the Titans 14-7 on Mike Mazzola’s 15-yard TD run snapping a 7-7 tie with 7:24 left in the game. North had two drives deep into Pinkerton territory, both stalling, the last one on a failed hook-and-ladder play with 18 seconds left.

What made it more frustrating was North had beaten the Astros 33-7 during the regular season.

The previous season, the Titans dominated Salem statistically but still lost 28-21.

Laurendi, who took over the North head job after a couple of seasons at Merrimack when Robie stepped down after the 2014 season, says the memories are still fresh.

“You still kind of go back 10 years later and say ‘Maybe we could’ve done this’, and you go back and watch the film,” he said. “You know, but it always comes down to you just didn’t make enough plays. When you’re in a championship, you’re playing a good team. And it only takes a play or two to turn the game.”

And ruin an otherwise great season.

“Unfortunately we played really well,” Laurendi said. “But not well enough, and it stings. It stings. It stings more, because I always remember how upset the kids were.

“That’s the thing that kind of gets you more than anything, is seeing the look on their faces.”

He chuckles when asked if he has taken a look at the tape of those games.

“I haven’t watched those in a while,” Laurendi said. “But I remember going back and taking a look a couple of years later, or finding something on YouTube, or seeing a story on that. Or I’ll watch a little bit of it.”

Laurendi was asked which was the tougher loss, if it’s possible to rank them.

“I think maybe Pinkerton,” Laurendi said. “Salem earlier in that year we just couldn’t stop, so we were kind of conservative on offense against Salem as a plan because we wanted to keep the ball out of their hands. We did that. And they threw for a couple of touchdowns, and at that point they were a great running team. So we did such a great job defensively, they made great plays to win the game.”

But the loss to the Astros was, in his mind, even tougher.

“Pinkerton, we had beaten them earlier in the year, obviously a great program,” Laurendi said. “We made some mistakes that we typically hadn’t made all year in that game. But that happens.”

So Laurendi tells his players to cherish the moment, and take nothing for granted going into Saturday.

“Just because you get there, doesn’t mean you’re entitled to the championship,” he said. “There’s another really good team you’re playing. It’s not a destiny thing.”

Laurendi would just like it to be a winning thing this time around.

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