Nashua South's Kyle Emmons is in on the tackle of Bishop Guertin's Hudson Schmitt (5) during Saturday night's South OT win at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – This may very well may not be your father’s Nashua High School South football team this season.

At least they didn’t look like the same team that’s missed the playoffs the last few years. The young, inexperienced Panthers are growing up. It’s doubtful they would have been able to come out on the high end of Saturday night’s 21-15 overtime thriller vs. Bishop Guertin at Stellos Stadium a year ago.

“Last year, we were a real young team,” South junior receiver Josh Tripp, who had two TD catches in the game, said. “But this year we have all returning guys at each position, and that really helped us.”

Remember, last year the Panthers went 0-6 to start. When they left their post game gathering on the Stellos turf, they were shouting “1-0.”

“You’re going to see us get better week to week,” Panthers coach Scott Knight said. “We’d seen it all preseason. We had a great preseason. Teams that we did well against in preseason all won last night big. We’re going to be fine. … A great group of kids. They’re fun and they work hard.”

The Panthers made life tough in the secondary for Bishop Guertin’s passing game. It wasn’t until the Cards went to their strength, their run game behind a returning offensive line, that things got entertaining.

“I like the way our defense flies around,” Knight said, as he has Tripp, Colvin Levesque, Sam Levine, etc. lead the way.

Remember, everything is week to week for most teams. The Panthers opponent this Saturday afternoon at Stellos is Keene, and all the Blackbirds did in their opener was pound Spaulding 42-0.

RUN, CARDS, RUN

Can Bishop Guertin continuously do what they did to South in the second half, which was pound the ball?

Their 20 play drive that resulted in the tying touchdown was old school football, and the run game looks like Guertin’s strength.

“It was a good sustained drive,” Cards coach Anthony Nalen said. “But it’s hard doing that, making a living off that. Last year it would be an 80 yard touchdown off of passing. You have to play a perfect game to go 80 yards on 12 plays, with no penalties.”

The thing is, the Cards never found themselves in a third-and-long in that drive, and their drive in which they almost won the game on a field goal attempt that went just wide.

“It makes it tough on a play caller,” Nalen said, “than throwing for a touchdown. But we’ll get more consistent. These guys are super young.”

In fact, Nalen noted, Guertin had just one senior on the field near the end of the game, running back A.J. Holmes.

“We’re a super young team,” Nalen said. “They’re getting better each and every day.”

NORTH SHORTHANDED

North coach Chad Zibolis had to move a few people around in the loss Friday night to Bedford, he said. He had to use Darius Smith more in pass coverage with the injury to Luke Peters than he would have liked. Smith is also a pass rushing specialist. Peters injured his shoulder in the preseason scrimmage vs. Alvirne that and was iffy to return as soon as this coming week. “Those were some of the things we have to do,” Zibolis said.

Also, the Titans have a whole new offensive line in front of quarterback John Canaway, who didn’t have a lot of preseason time while waiting to get medically cleared after knee issues.

“He made a couple of great plays,” Zibolis said. “He’s coming off that knee injury and that Alvirne scrimmage was his only action, and it was maybe a quarter.”

ALVIRNE FORGES AHEAD

The Broncos beat Manchester Central for the second straight year in their opener, and have a new standout to hand the ball off to in junior running back Michael Landmesser. He had three rushing TDs to go with his 159 yards – 112 of it coming in the first half. But the trick will be to keep that up, as the Broncos host Salem in their home opener on Friday. The Blue Devils lost to Londonderry 30-7 – but besides a Bedford or a Pinkerton, who doesn’t?

“You feel like, ‘All right, we beat a good team,'” Broncos coach Matt Lee said. “but we’ve got a lot more good teams down the line.”

WHO’S CAMPBELL’S RIVAL?

With Trinity now up in Division II, who is Campbell’s chief rival in Division III?

It’s probably Monadnock, as the teams seem to almost annually square off in the postseason, including title games from a few years back.

“Monadnock is a team we’ll always have ,” Cougars coach Glen Costello said, and he added that Gilford and Inter-Lakes are fellow contenders.

Gilford beat Sanborn 41-2 and Inter-Lakes/Moultonborough beat Kearsarge 34-7. The Cougars host Gilford on Oct. 5 but play ILM on the road in two weeks.

WHAT HAPPENED AT PELHAM?

It’s been a bad off-season for Pelham and also for John Trisciani. The father of the former Bishop Guertin coach of the same name stepped down abruptly from Pelham late in the week – just a day before the defending Division II champs were to open their season. New athletic director Justin Hufft is taking over, at least for now. Sources said Trisciani’s move was on his own, but no reason is known. This after he was hired by Hollis Brookline to be its coach in February, but then in May felt Pelham would be a better fit and got hired there.