Nashua South's Colvin Levesque, left, and Kyle Emmons react to the final buzzer that signaled an end to their season, a 28-13 quarterfinal loss to Londonderry at Lancer Park. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

LONDONDERRY – Most air travel for the Londonderry High School football team in Saturday’s Division I quarterfinal vs. Nashua South was, well, grounded.

And the Lancers couldn’t have been happier as they rushed for 359 yards en route to a 28-13 win over the No. 6 Panthers at Sawyer Field.

The loss ends the best season South (8-3) has had in the last five-plus years, but for Londonderry (7-2 in-state) it means a trip to face No. 2 Exeter in next weekend’s Division I semifinals.

“They’re a running team,” South coach Scott Knight. “A good 70 percent run team. And given the last few weeks, we’ve given up a lot of rushing yards. Given that, I would expect them (to run). And they’re big up front, they can lean on you a bit.

“We had linemen issues on ‘D’, we weren’t lining up right, guys on the wrong side of the field. I don’t know if it was nerves or whatever. … The kids played hard. They gave it all they had. And that’s all you can ask as a coach.”

Londonderry threw just four times in the game, with two completions for a total of 10 yards. There was no hiding what the Lancers’ game plan was.

“We want to be a great run team,” Londonderry coach Jimmy Lauzon said. “It’s really based on personnel, some years we throw it more than others, but this is a power football team.”

And they powered their way behind a large offensive line, led by junior back Adrian Cruz, who ran for 179 yards and three TDs on 21 carries.

The Lancers got off to a great start 14-0 start. They took the opening kickoff and drove 60 yards in seven plays – including their one pass completion – with Cruz slipping in from a yard out. The first of four Blake Thompson PATs gave them a 7-0 lead three minutes in.

Then disaster hit South, a fumble on the ensuing kickoff recovered by the Lancers, who took just three plays to go 21 yards, Cruz getting his second TD to help make it 14-0 with 7:49 left in the first.

“A game like this, turnovers and penalties, you’ve got to play clean,” Knight said. “But again, we weathered that storm early, got it together and we were playing pretty good.”

Yes they were, thanks to a fourth-down gamble at their own 37 that led to a 30-yard Cody Jackson QB run, setting up his 6-yard fourth-and-goal pass to Colvin Levesque. A two-point try failed and it was 14-6 with 3:14 left in the first.

The Lancers, though, answered with a 13, 65-yard drive that ended with their second and last pass completion of the day, a Sam Ogden 6-yard TD pass to Jon Inglese that helped get the lead back to 21-6.

However, South answered with a 12-play, 80-yard march just before the end of the half with Kyle Emmons – whose fake punt run of 32 yards highlighted the drive – scoring from one yard out, helping to make it 21-13 going into the locker room. It turned out to be the last TD of the stellar senior’s career, and he led the Panthers with 63 yards rushing yesterday.

“We felt pretty good going into half because we got the second half kickoff. Maybe go down and score and tie it up, and make it a new game. But we went three-and-out.”

Yes they did, and the first two series of the second half basically decided the game. That’s because the Lancers, on their first possession, marched 92 yards in 11 plays, an old-style drive that ended with another 1-yard Cruz TD run, and it was 28-13 with just over four minutes left in the third. “That,” Knight said, “was it.”

It didn’t help the Panthers that they chewed up the rest of the quarter with a 13-play drive that died inside the Londonderry 10 on a fourth-down incompletion.

They didn’t see the ball again until there was 4:49 left in the game, as the Lancers had their next drive go 14 plays. It didn’t matter that Thompson missed a 32-yard field goal wide right; they held the ball for two-thirds of the final period to start.

“We wanted to control the pace,” Lauzon said. “I know they wanted to go fast. There were times we wanted to, but for the most part we wanted to make sure our guys had a chance to breathe.”

Nashua South’s Cody Jackson has plent of room to run for a big gain that helped set up the Panthers’ first TD during the Division I quarterfinals in Londonderry. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Lauzon trusted his running game so much he had the Lancers go for it on fourth and 3 from their own 39 on the clock-killing drive that started the fourth quarter. And Ogden ran 5 yards for the first.

“Well, the last punt we had, we ended up getting just 20 yards out of that,” Lauzon said. “And there was always the chance they could block (a punt). At the end of the day, keep the ball in your playmakers’ hands and our offensive line’s pretty good.”

“It was one of those things,” Knight said. “We just kept getting outflanked on the perimeter, and we had some tackling issues.”

While the Lancers move on, South, with a young team that won just two games a year ago, played in two playoff games this season.

“Big progress,” Knight said. “We hope to take the next step next year.”