Exeter's Sam Dulac tries to outrun the Nashua North defense en route to a 50-yard touchdown during Friday night's Division I contest at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – They knew what was coming. But stopping it for the Nashua High School North football team Friday night was another matter.

Yes, the Exeter Blue Hawks always pose that problem with their pounding, trapping offense, and they took the Titans to school to the tune of a 36-0 win at Stellos Stadium.

“We were in places, and we weren’t making tackles,” Nashua North coach Chad Zibolis said. “At some points, it looked like we were getting out of the way. And that’s not the way we play football.”

The Blue Hawks led 29-0 at halftime after outgaining the Titans 220-26, and the game was essentially over.

“I was really happy defensively,” Exeter coach Bill Ball said, his team now 2-0. “Offensively we were good, in the second half OK. We’ve got room to grow.”

The Blue Hawks enjoyed a lot of room last night. To start, Sam Dulac’s 56-yard punt return set up a 13-yard TD run by Jack Kavanaugh just 2:12 into the game. Exeter added a 5-yard TD from its leading rusher on the night, senior Tyler Bland (106 yards on 10 carries) with 1:50 left in the period and the Titans were in a 14-0 hole, and showing no signs of an offensive attack.

“We came out, and we came out so flat,” Zibolis said. “We were just a team that was like deflated from the get-go. Just a lot of mental things that weren’t going, kids playing out of position. It was tough all around.”

The Blue Hawks then went to the air, surprising North on a fourth-and-5 from midfield as QB Michael Caron found Dulac beyond the secondary for a catch-and-run 50 yard TD that basically told everyone at Stellos it was over, 21-0 with 5:27 left in the half.

Before the half ended, Bland broke one on one of the typical Blue Hawk trap plays for 53 yards down to the Titan 7. Two plays later Charlie Dulac rumbled in from 2 yards out, and two-point conversion following a North penalty made it 29-0 at the half.

“Attack the mid-line, right?” Ball said of his running game. “You want to attack the mid-line, you want to attack the off-tackle and you want to attack the perimeter. Tyler’s a smart kid, a tremendous student athlete, and we’re lucky to have him.”

North defended a bit better in the second half – Exeter fumbled the ball away immediately after Cole Kelley had given it the ball at North’s 19, picking off a John Canaway pass. The Blue Hawks’ final score showed just how tough of a night it was for North as a Caron pass was tipped by Titan Dylan Noble, but right into the awaiting arms of Garrett White. White scampered 21 yards into the end zone as the last of Jonathan Adams’ PAT kicks with just over two minutes left accounted for the 36-0 final. Caron was 5 of 6 for 123 yards and two TDs, while Exeter had 344 yards of total offense.

“It’s always a tough place to play,” Ball said of Stellos. “Happy with the effort.”

Not so much Zibolis, understandably so.

While players didn’t fall to the turf cramping, many Titans came out of the game because of the problem in the warm, humid temps. It just added to a bad night.

“We were cramping up, not taking care of our bodies,” Zibolis said. “Things like that that are just undisciplined that I don’t expect from our kids. We’ve got to change that, take a long look in the mirror, and decide what we need to do, and what kind of football team we want to be. Because right now, it’s not working, so we’ve got to figure something out.”