Connor Rowsell (34) will be one of the players the Nashua South football team will likely be counting on next season. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in an occasional series of stories the next few weeks looking back at this fall and ahead to next year’s high school football season.)

NASHUA – It’s still a painful memory.

Nashua High School South football coach Scott Knight still winces nearly a month later, understandably, when thinking of the Panthers’ 27-26 loss at the hands of Merrimack in the first round of the Division I playoffs.

He likens it to the 1999 unified Nashua team’s upset loss to Manchester Central in the finals at Holman Stadium.

“That was a hard, hard loss,” Knight said. “That’s one of the hardest losses I can remember since the ’99 state title game. … For some reason I walked off from that game with the same feeling of ‘What just happened?’ But I give Merrimack a lot of credit, they came to play. But we were trying. Just something unfolding, it was tough to stop the bleeding.”

But now the Panthers, who ended at 2-3, will do what every team does, recover and move forward. They say good-bye to some talented seniors, including back/defensive end Jason Compoh and quarterback Chris Keefe. But it’s only 10 in total, and this team is built for the future with a current talented sophomore and junior group.

“I think we’ll be pretty competitive,” Knight said. “The big thing this year was could we get those sophomores and the inexperience up front to play playoff level football by playoff time and I thought they did. I thought they played well, especially, on both sides of the ball. Even in the Merrimack game.”

Sophomore Cody Goode and junior Connor Rowsell will be counted on as keys defensively at linebacker.

“I love our linebackers and both of those guys come back,” Knight said. “Goode had the pick six in the playoff game, real good blitzer, just a smart player. And Rowsell is one of our best football players. He was one of our best players as a sophomore (in 2019).”

Up front, players like Matt Harding, Colby Vancelette (both sophomores), and Jimmy Brown (a junior) are all back. “Those guys all played well,” Knight said, adding that another sophomore, Antonio Martinez, will be another key at defensive end.

“We lose Jason Compoh, but I like some of the other kids we have coming up at that position,” Knight said.

Current junior defensive backs Mike Rutstein and Lorenzeau Abreu will return. Remember, Rutstein was a QB possibility after playing the position for a good chunk of 2019.

“He’ll be fighting it out with a sophomore, Karsten Lemire,” Knight said. “He’ll be in the mix for a bunch of things next year. He’s looked real good at free safety, he’s 6-2 and a natural at quarterback. We really like him, he moves extremely well. He could be a potential game breaker, and he can kick.”

Another player the Panthers will be looking to get back is the younger Compoh, Josh, who was a lead back on offense but missed most of the abbreviated season with a bad ankle.

Others offensive keys are Lorenzo and Rowsell in catching or running the football. “We’ve got some weapons to be sure coming back,” Knight said.

The off season will be huge, Knight said, for developing depth. “We’re just not going to be very deep,” he said, “The off season will be important. We just have to see how they develop over the next nine months.

“That’s the next step. That’s the hard part. We’re not allowed to get into the weight room until at least (and if) winter sports start. A lot of kids are training off-site right now.”

And there’s a lot of players anxious, he said, because of how the season ended.

“We worked some bugs out, and I thought we were peaking with that Bedford game,” Knight said of a stunning 41-7 win over the Bulldogs in the regular season finale. “I’m not sure if we were a little overconfident going into that Merrimack game. Jumping out 20-0, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.

“To be on the sideline, and watch a situation like that unfold, it reminded me of watching the Pats against the Giants (in the Super Bowl). A couple of their kids made some great catches and you could see we were playing to not lose the game and their kids got momentum. It’s one of those games I’ve been involved in a couple of those over the years, but not many.”

South actually wanted to get a game or two to fill the void after the Nov. 1 end to the season but those efforts fell through.

“We reached out, but were just unsuccessful,” Knight said. “I didn’t want to just practice for nothing. … And we didn’t want to go to play a team out of our ‘bubble’. So we weren’t going to go to Portsmouth (which was seeking a game) or anything like that. We tried to get something local but it just didn’t work.

“So we had to turn in our gear. It was just a different situation.”

One they want to avoid next year.

“We’ll just see what happens,” Knight said. “I think we can be competitive, I just don’t know at what level. It’ll depend on the next nine months and our health.”

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