Bishop Guertin's Jakob Baker's energy on the football field has been contagious, especially for his teammates on defense. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – With Jakob Baker, it’s lights, camera, action.

And that’s not just on the football field.

Baker, the highly touted Bishop Guertin High School defensive lineman/linebacker, has become a videographer extraordinaire. If you see him at a game he’s not playing in, you’ll almost certainly see a video camera in his hand. He’s not only turned it into a hobby, but also pretty much a business/career.

What about football? That’s the tough part. Baker has helped lead the No. 5 Cardinals (8-2) into Friday night’s Division I quarterfinals at No. 4 Pinkerton (8-1, 8-2 overall). It’s a challenging game, BG goes in as the underdog, and it’s now the time of year when your season could end when the fourth quarter clock hits zero.

And perhaps your football career. Shockingly, that may be the case with Baker, a Pelham native who has been playing the game since he was in the second grade.

“It’s coming close to the end,” said Baker, who said he might be interested in rugby as a college pastime, but not football. “I love it, but sometimes you have to put the helmet down and focus on something else.”

Of course, Baker could be considered a scholarship player, and he knows that it still could be a ways to a means: help get him into a school, defray his costs, and he could pursue his videography studies.

But he’s not ready to make that commitment to the sport. At least not now. In fact, he hasn’t posted any video highlights of himself playing so schools have not really been in contact.

“I think it’s a great question,” Cards coach John Trisciani said. “It’s tough for me to answer. I’ve talked to him a few times, and he hasn’t wavered at all. I’m sure he’s talked to his brother (former Cardinal Kyle, now at Plymouth State), his Mom and Dad quite a bit.

“On a positive, if he has an idea of what he wants to do career wise, that’s really admirable. A lot of these kids don’t have the direction we would like. So if it’s not the path you or I may choose, I think it is really nice the kid has some direction to go in and with his work ethic succeed at anything he does.”

“Filming just took a big hit on me and I love it,” Baker said. “The stress and anxiety of getting into a new school, I’ve always wanted to get myself into that, lugging the camera, and went out and filmed. I had all my friends tell me ‘You’re doing real good at it, make a social media’ and it just popped off from there.”

Baker was simply looking for a hobby to take his mind off school. It is now his passion, athough he admits during football season, for the most part, he puts the camera aside.

Baker has ironically become a highlight film of his own the last two years with his play, especially on defense.

“He’s athletically gifted, a real big-time athletic guy, as they say he plays with a high motor,” Trisciani said. “He’s really turned himself into a pretty good physical specimen as far as how big he is, how strong he is, he’s done a good job in the off-season staying in shape, etc. And he’s very coachable, we’ve neeeded him at different positions and as we’re in the playoffs, it’s no different. We played him at multiple different spots last week, and we’ll probably do the same this week.”

Baker’s used to that. He’s played on both sides of the ball in multiple spots – heck, his freshman year, he was a wide receiver. Defense has been more attractive because it’s more freestyle.

“I’ve always loved defense, always loved hitting the guys,” he said. “You can do anything you want on defense, basically.”

Baker said even going into last year he didn’t realize how good a defensive player he was. Or, how comfortable he could become, because he’s humble about his ability.

“I’m getting better every day,” he said. “I don’t think I’m the best yet. I don’t think I’m that good. I’ve got to beat myself every day, and usually I come (up) short.”

But Baker’s work ethic has made him a winner, that’s for sure.

“He’s one of the hardest working kids, which I think is a big component of leadership besides ability and on-field performance,” Trisciani said, adding that approach will help him away from the game. “He’s always working, working really, really hard.”

Bishop Guertin’s Jakob Baker hopes this Friday night won’t be his final football game. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Baker feels his 6-foot-1, 220-pound size makes his speed a somewhat secret weapon. Opponents aren’t used to seeing someone that big come off the ball that quickly. When he’s at linebacker, he can move quickly in space. “But I’m not thinking of any of that when I play, it’s all muscle memory,” he said. “Instinct.”

Trisciani says that Baker’s speed and energy to make a play is a show of his confidence, as he’s “not just moving fast, but moving fast with a purpose. … It’s getting there, getting on blocks, making tackles; even last week he’s dropping into pass coverage.”

Trisciani says that confidence comes from the amount of football Baker has played the last couple of years. He’s also an offensive lineman, sometime-tight end, and his blocking ability is a key for the Cardinal offense as well.

“Any success we have on offense is really tied to the offensive line, so it’s really important to have him there as well,” Trisciani said.

Baker is certainly someone Pinkerton will try to avoid or at least somewhat remove from BG’s defensive equation as Baker can chase down ball carriers and Friday promises to be a run heavy game on both sides. But how?

“That’s a really good question, and something we were talking about as a coaching staff,” Trisciani said, noting Baker was on the outside as a defensive end/linebacker in last year’s regular season game with the Astros, a 22-12 victory for Pinkerton in what was an intense, physical game.

“He made some plays but I’m not sure if he made as big of an impact as he would if he were playing toward the middle of the defense,” Trisciani said, “so he can play both sides.”

So expect Baker to be in other spots, and not in any position of weakness as part of the chess game.

“We’ve got to believe,” Baker said of Friday night. “We’ve got to stay focused. We’ve got a lot of kids back, we have to focus on the second half, too.”

Baker is no stranger at making decisions, even at a young age. He decided, with his parents’ blessings, that he wanted to follow in his brother’s footsteps at Guertin because “I wanted to play with the big boys, play some D-I football.”

But that was going into high school. Going into college, Baker paints a different picture, a series of them that are his own making.

And, in reality, his passion.