Nashua South's Trevor Stevens wraps up Keene QB Kasen Abbott during Saturday's Division I clash at Stellos Stadium. (Photo by Tom King/Nashua Telegraph)

NASHUA – Even if you don’t know the final score, you can always tell who won a high school football game by how long each team meets on the field with their coach after it’s over.

Nashua South’s Scott Knight late Saturday afternoon took about three or four minutes. Keene’s Linwood Patnode? Try nearly 15 minutes. That’s because the final score was Nashua South 22, Keene 0 – and it wasn’t that close.

The Panthers won the battle in the trenches, pure and simple.

“I thought overall the kids up front just kept digging in,” Knight said as his team is in new territory than the past few years, now off to a 2-0 start. “I thought we played really well up front on both sides of the ball. … When push came to shove, we made some key third, fourth down conversions. That was really big.

“I have a good feeling about these kids. I’m confident. I’m confident in these kids on both sides of the ball.”

Meanwhile, Patnode was clearly not happy with his 1-1 team’s flat performance, as they were outgained 339-176 and turned the ball over four times (two fumbles – one on the South 1-yard line – and two interceptions). He felt his team got caught up on the media hype after their 42-7 win over Spaulding in Week 1.

“We completely blew it,” he said. “We blew the opportunity to go 2-0. We should have been able to do that. We didn’t practice well. This is the by product of not coming to practice and working hard.

“This is the by product of having too many people with power polls, too many people in the newspapers, too many people trying to call me from Friday Night Lights, and all that other stuff, all that hoopla. It’s never good. And it wasn’t good this time.”

South was paced by Sam Levine’s three TDs and 95 yards rushing, plus QB Cody Jackson’s 69 yards on the ground and 148 through the air. But it was a special teams play that began the scoring after the teams were trading turnovers. Kevin Ndubuisi blocked a Blackbird punt out of the end zone for a safety and a 2-0 South lead on the third play of the second quarter.

“It got us going,” Knight said. “It’s like ‘How many times are we going to get down there?’ That kind of lit us up.”

Levine scored the game’s first TD with 9:29 left in the half, a 1-yard run, set up by a Jackson 26-yard run, for an 8-0 Panther lead. One more Levine touchdown, this one a 2-yard plunge with 2:43 left in the half set up by a Colvin Levesque 40-yard reception, and the Panthers took a 15-0 led into the locker room.

Nashua South’s Diego Cabrera intercepts a pass intended for Keene’s Colin Tinnin (28) during Saturday’s game at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Nashua South’s Diego Cabrera intercepts a pass intended for Keene’s Colin Tinnin (28) during Saturday’s game at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

The Panthers scored one second half TD, a 9-yard Levine run against a worn out Blackbird defense.

“I’ve got to give it up to my line for real,” Levine said. “They put in a lot of work in the off-season, and they got it done today.They (Keene) were all gassed, they were huffing and puffing all day. Hot day like this? We’re in (better) shape than them, so we won.

“I watched film, I saw their ‘D’ line. They’re bigger, they get tired, I knew I could outrun them.”

And that’s what the Panthers did. A sign that Knight knew his team ownned the line of scrimmage was the fact they went for it on fourth down four times.

“They saw that they were kicking our ass,” Patnode said, hoping his team recovers by the time it hosts Nashua North next Friday. “They could do anything they wanted.”

And The Blackbird offense of QB Kasen Abbott, Aiden Ioannou and Sawyer Lepple was hamstrung save for a few plays.

As Patnode said, “This was a terrible, terrible loss. It happened, didn’t it.”

It did, and again, this is a Nashua South team that looks like it means business in 2024.