Nashua South's Gus Smiley (15) reaches way above Merrimack's Josh Ozog (10) to grab a pass during Friday night's game at MHS' Student Memorial Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MERRIMACK – If you arrived just a few minutes late for the Nashua High School South vs. Merrimack football encounter at Student Memorial Field, well, you pretty much missed the game.

It was 14-0 South before you could blink, 21-0 less than six minutes in, and the Panthers enjoyed a 35-0 win to stay unbeaten at 7-0.

“We had a fast start, all right, two weeks in a row,” South coach Scott Knight said. “We got out of the gate pretty good.”

How good? South scored on their first two plays from scrimmage. Quarterback Cody Jackson took off for a 59-yard TD run and a 2-point conversion made it 8-0 1:40 in. Then, following a second straight Tomahawk three-and-out, Jackon hit Kyle Emmons on a flip over the middle and Emmons did the rest, a 70-yard TD with 8:12 left in the opening quarter. A missed PAT left the score 14-0.

The Panthers then recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff at the Merrimack 35, and six plays later Jackson plunged in from a yard out, Preston Bois added the PAT and it was 21-0 with 6:38 left in the first. Jackson’s 31-yard pass to Colvin Levesque set that one up.

Pretty much game over.

“We had talked about that before the game, that one of their strengths is their ability to hit explosive plays,” Merrimack coach Kip Jackson said. “If you look at their games, they’re close for a few minutes, then boom. It’s 14-0, 21-0, 28-7 then you’re playing into kind of their game. You have to now play up tempo which is what they want to do.”

Things then slowed down, but the Panthers got a score in the two-minute drill just before the half. Taking over at midfield with 1:18 left before the break, it took them four plays, the fourth being a pretty fancy one – the ol’ hook-and-ladder. Jackson hit Josh Tripp over the middle on a 20-yard completion, and Tripp quickly flipped it to Justin Fish who raced 15 yards into the end zone with eight seconds left in the half for what became a 28-0 halftime lead.

“They gave us some problems up front, we took a couple of sacks, but we overcame,” Knight said. “We work on that (hook-and-ladder). We needed a little pick-me-up.”

The Panthers then sent things to running time with an eight-play, 67-yard scoring march to start the second half, Colvin Levesque setting up his 1-yard TD run with a 28-yard reception. Bois’ third PAT of the night made it 35-0 with 7:38 left to play in the third. Jackson finished the night 13 of 17 for 264 yards and a TD, and rushed 11 times for 58 yards and two touchdowns, two big sacks keeping that total down.

Meanwhile, the Tomahawks couldn’t crack the end zone. Their offense was basically the running (just 13 yards on eight carries) and throwing (9 of 19, 70 yards, 2 INTs) of QB Sahil Mujawar. Their deepest penetration was to the South 21 late in the third before Panther Bruno Goncalves picked him off on a deflection to preserve the shutout.

“What people don’t talk about is their defense is playing really well,” Jackson said, “and they took away stuff that we like to do.”

And the Panthers, who face a huge test next Friday at Bedford, did what they like to do: Start fast, and finish on top. Next time, get there early.