Campbell running back Scott Hershberger has taken Division III by storm and will be a big factor in Saturday's title game vs. Trinty (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

HUDSON – It was a year ago in a game late in the regular sesonn, against Stevens that Campbell High School football coach Glenn Costello’s jaw dropped.

He saw Scott Hershberger take the football at the tailback position and make a move that a junior or senior would make, taking off into the open. Remember, Costello has seen plenty of talented backs, including alum Keegan Mills, perhaps the best of all the Cougars in their around 20-year history.

“He made a cutback on a play, and I said something along the line of ‘Holy S’,” Costello, who happens to live just down the street from the Hershbergers in Litchfield, said. “A move that Keegan wasn’t making until his junior year.”

“I made a cutback on a reach,” Hershberger, now a sophomore, said prior to the start of a special practice Tuesday under the lights at Alvirne High School “(Costello) just saw something on that play.”

Fast forward a year later, and Hershberger has taken the rest of Divsion III by storm, and will no doubt be the target of the Trinity High School defense when the two teams tangle this Saturday in the championship game at Souhegan High School’s Saber Field at 1 p.m.

This season the sophomore has rushed for 2,064 yards and 27 TDs on 192 carries, five of those coming in a 276-yard, five TD effort last Friday night in the semifinal win over Monadnock.

Oh and he’s also thrown for 117 yards.

Yikes.

“I saw glimpses of it last year, he worked his butt off in the off-season, and he’s bought into the system,” Costello said.

Hershberger as a freshman began playing fullback, and his first game vs. Kearsarge that season he ran for just over 100 yards.

Toward end of the year, his brother Nick moved to fullback and the Cougars placed Scott at tailback, “and we started seeing glimpses of what we’re seeing today,” Costello said.

“I never expected to have a breakout year like this,” Hershberger said, noting he was amazed at his first breakaway TD of the season in the Sept. 2 opener vs. Epping-Newmarket. “It (that run) just seemed really easy.”

Like a lot of kids, the Hershbergers began playing football with the Hudson-Litchfield Bears, and Scott was used all over the place. His first few years: He was a center. Then he moved to fullback, and moved to tailback. And he’s been a predominantly a tailback ever since.

“You have the natural talent, he’s coachable, he’s strong, he’s fast, and to boot he has a really good offensive line in front of it,” Costello said. “It all seems to be aligning this year.”

Remember, he and Nick were varsity players as freshmen, highly unusual. But as Costello said, the pair would be “making an impact at any level throughout the state.”

As a runner, what does Hershberger do to make such a difference. He keeps running forward, not away to avoid tacklers as some backs do.

“His acceleration through the hole makes him very difficult to tackle,” Costello said. “There’s been some huge holes, you have Scott running full speed through them, it’s very difficult to stop Scott Hershberger at the second and third level.

“He has this deceiving elusiveness for someone his size. You put together size, strength, elusiveness, plus a good offensive line, and you see a 2,000-yard rusher.”

Hershberger says he’s been playing tailback long enough, his field vision comes naturally.

“I can see the holes develop,” he said. “And how the blocks are supposed to be set up, and I can find the holes easy.”

Hershberger said he knew that this year was his turn to get the bulk of the running back load, and the taste he had of it toward the end of his freshman year made him want more.

“I knew I was next up in the lineup,” the six-foot, 185-pound back said. “I did everything I could (to prepare).”

That included going to football camps – one at the University of New Hampshire – and living in the weight room. Plus he went to just about every optional off-season captains practice, etc. The player was ready. And he knows that running back isn’t as easy as it looks.

“You have to be strong, fast, you kind of have to be a do-it-all,” he said. “I think I can handle it.”

“Him being a running back on a team that prides itself on running, and being team oriented, it takes a special kid,” Costello said. “I’m not looking for your traditional, primadonna type running backs. I want a hard-nosed, gritty, team-first type of player. … Run up into the hole and punish defenders. What made Keegan one of the best running backs I’ve ever seen is Keegan would punish people. He would lay his shoulder or head into defenders in the first and second quarter; by the third quarter, nobody wanted to try to tackle him.

“Scott’s now piecing together that physical piece where he does run hard, and people late in the half are going to avoid him like the plague.”

Scott Hershberger has been waiting for this. As a youth, he saw Mills play for the Cougars “and I was amazed. To think that I’m beating his record is amazing.”

Of course, to put up the numbers when it counts is even more satisfying; Monadnock had held him in check during a lopsided regular season loss and he turned the tables on the Huskies. He had some success vs. the Pioneers, but he just follows his running formula:

“I always think it’s going to be short gain, short gain, and then one’s going to pop,” he said. “So I think (vs. Trinity) I’m just going to keep hammering it.”

Hershberger says the competition between he and his brother helps.

“My brother is definitely one of the biggest reason why I’ve been able to do as well as I’ve been doing,” he said. “It’s the best competition in the world. Just pushes me to do better.”

Both Scott and Nick have been good defensively as a linebacker tandem.

“I love playing defense,” he said. “Nick and I at inside linebacker, the dynamic duo.”

Now the question is, what can the sophomore tailback do for an encore?

Costello feel if Hershberger can work on his speed, he can be a Divison I-AA back. Hershberger says he’d love to play in college, but right now, that’s the furthest from his mind as he’s looking to win a title.

This is certainly fun for Hershberger as well as his Cougar teammates. He remembers one year when he was younger winning a championship in a triple overtime game with the Bears; he’d love to feel that again.

“It’s what everybody dreams of,” he said. “The Super Bowl.”

Hershberger says besides the competition as well as any blocking by brother Nick, the rest of the Cougar offensive line has been incredible. That, Costello said, includes players like senior Dom Silva, Evan St. Pierre, junior Lochlain O’Neil, plus sophomore Zach Poulin, and Alex St. Pierre, among others.

“I don’t think I’m doing amazing – the holes are there (created by his line) and I hit them,” he said. “Anybody can do what I’m doing, honestly.”

But that bar has been raised so high already.

“I just have to keep working hard and keep doing what I’m doing,” Hershberger said, “and raise it even more.”

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