Michael Fiengo has been a huge weapon at QB for Souhegan this season with both his arm and his feet. (Telegraph file photo by TOM KING)

AMHERST – Michael Fiengo knew he was going to be the new Souhegan High School quarterback right at the start of camp.

He had done extensive 7 on 7 play over the summer, and he was the main guy. And at camp he was getting the first team reps.

“I knew I was good, but I never got the time to showcase it,” Fiengo, a junior, said.

He’s showcasing it now. Fiengo’s play is one of the big reasons the No. 4 Sabers (9-2) are headed to Derry on Saturday to take on No. 2 Pelham (10-1) in the Division II championship game at 1 p.m. at Pinkerton Academy.

The Sabers were smart not to try to fit a square peg into a round hole. Fiengo last year watched in amazement as then-junior Romy Jain completed his third year of standout dropback QB play before moving on to this year. Fiengo is more of a running QB, and was also smart not to try to change.

“He (Jain) has incredible arm talent,” Fiengo said. “I think we have different styles of quarterbacks. But he taught me a lot, especially in the passing game. I learned a lot from him. And the offensive schemes I think Coach (Sabers head coach Robin Bowkett) did a really good job of adjusting to what my strengths are and that helped us a lot this year.”

“I knew he was really good as a running quarterback,” Bowkett said. “I’ve been more impressed with his ability to throw the football. He throws it just well enough. His arm strength is cool, but it’s accuracy, decision making, mental fortitude, competitiveness, those are the intangibles we really want in a quarterback, and he has all those.”

Fiengo was putting up numbers running and throwing all season, but really came of age when he led a last minute drive down the field to send the regular season loss to Plymouth into overtime.

“I think I had my best throwing game,” he said. “That’s when I got full confidence in my arm, and our team, because we hung with the best.”

And last Saturday, they beat that same perceived best as the junior QB ran and threw for a combined five touchdowns.

“Obviously Michael was kind of unknown,” Saber receiver Brayden Hickman said. “We all kind of knew he had wheels, he definitely had talent with his legs. His arm was unknown, but he obviously had progressed awesome. He’s a great teammate and great leader. Even though he may not be a captain, he’s one of the best leaders on the team, still.”

“He gets the ball out on time, he’s accurate, he’s tough, he can spin it, he throws a catchable ball,” Bowkett said. “He can throw all the different balls – the screens, the deep balls, the intermediates. I think that’s what I’ve been most impressed with from him.”

Teams were starting to key on Fiengo as the season went on but he and the Sabers found ways to work around it.

“That’s the great thing about our system,” Bowkett said. “We’ll cater to what our best players can do. Especially the quarterback position. We’ll always try to tweak things to what they do best. If that means we can run the ball a little bit more, great. If it’s a kid like Romy and we’ll chuck the ball a little bit more, than fine. But no, we have a really good balance of the two. … Michael is just a weapon with his feet. He’s probably the best running quarterback we’ve had since I’ve been the head coach here.”

“I knew we had a close team, and a lot of returning players,” Fiengo said. “I knew my legs were going to be good coming into the season, but thanks to the coaches I think my passing game got a lot better as the season went along.”

He also worked with local quarterback guru Trevor Knight, currently the head coach at Dracut (Mass.) High. But due to tendonitis he had to skip throwing much in the offseason, so it’s been a while.

Extensive physical therapy certainly solved that problem. And it certainly helps that Fiengo’s father Chris is a coach, a former assistant at Manchester West, and was his son’s coach at the youth level

But he’s anxious for Saturday. He was on the sidelines as a freshman when Souhegan lost to Pelham two years ago in this same game, at Bedford’s Bulldog Stadium.

This time he’s playing.

“I’m very excited,” he said. “Can’t wait.”

“He’s a football junkie, just like his dad,” Bowkett said. “Loves it. Loves college football, loves watching all that, and that’s great. He loves the Xs and Os. He’s always in my office, talking about film. You don’t always get that from kids.”

Souhegan QB Michael Fiengo possesses a lot of intangibles that have made this a successful season. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Souhegan QB Michael Fiengo possesses a lot of intangibles that have made this a successful season. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Beyond Saturday, the junior QB has a plan, because he’s got another year left. He wants to put on more went, get in the weight room, work on his IQ and leadership skills.

But he’s already shown the Sabers so much. Bowkett admitted he didn’t know the team could run a two-minute drill the way it did in the first Plymouth game, and that Fiengo showed incredible toughness.

“He was getting hit that night, and against Pelham,” Bowkett said. “But he just kept getting up and slinging it, finding open receivers. He’s just a competitive SOB, just extremely physically and mentally tough. The kids feed off that, too. They want to play really hard for them, block really well for him, they feel they’re never out of the fight.”

Run or throw?

“It doesn’t matter, as long was we end up in the end zone,” Fiengo said.

Count on it because that’s where this Saber QB seems to live.