Nashua South's Justin Fish (1) tries to outrun Merrimack's Stephen Doyle during Friday night's game at MHS' Student Memorial Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MERRIMACK – There have been times when Merrimack High School’s Student Memorial Field has resembled a house of horrors for the Nashua South football team.

Friday night wasn’t one of them.

Anytime the Tomahawks tried to get back in the game, the Panthers would push them away en route to a 51-16 fairly comfortable win.

There were all the ingredients going in of a familiar upset brewing. The Tomahawks were riding a four-game win streak and South, after a surprise loss to Manchester Memorial a week ago, was without two senior stalwarts, back Sam Levine and receiver/safety Justin Tripp due to injury and illness.

“I’m proud of the boys bouncing back,” South coach Josh Porter said, his team now 5-2 in Division I, 6-2 overall. “We got back to doing the little things this week, assignment football, and it showed. The boys played awesome tonight.

“Weird things happen here. But it’s good, we handled business.”

Cody Jackson had another big night throwing the football, completing 14 of 20 for 277 yards and four TDs, plus he ran for another.

“He’s incredible,” Porter said. “He understands, right? Take what the defense gives us and go from there.”

And the back who replaced Levine, junior Eric Baker, rushed for 99 yards and two TDs in an offense that amassed 478 yards.

Add to that the big play ability of Justin Fish, who had three TD receptions, and there was really no one the Tomahawks (4-3) could contain.

“He’s elusive,” Porter said, adding the offensive line helped South establish a running game as well. “We wanted to establish the run. We weren’t able to do that last week so we challenged them this week. It opens up the passing game and we went from there.”

Nashua jumped out to a 21-0 lead with a Jackson first quarter 14-yard TD flip to Colvin Levesque, a Baker 2-yard run and Fish 67-yard catch and run in the second quarter. The Tomahawks got on the board with a Maverick Torres 10-yard TD pass to Cayden Dine, plus a two-point pass to Zach Retey with 1:37 left in the half.

But they left the Panthers too much time. It only took Jackson six plays, the last being his own 15-yard TD run with 36 seconds left, to grab a 28-8 lead and ruin the ‘Hawks’ mojo – for the first of two times.

The other was the ultimate dagger. Merrimack scored on the second play of the second half, a Torres 50-yard pass play to Retey and subsequent two-point conversion to make it 28-16. What does South do? They answer on the first play of their next possession, a 58-yard Jackson pass to Fish in the corner of the end zone to regain the 20-point edge, 36-16.

“Those two, the end of the first half when we scored and they scored, that was a huge swing,” Merrimack coach Kip Jackson said. “And then the same thing happened at the beginning of the second half. Just momentum, emotionally, just made it tough.”

Nashua South’s Colvin Levesque tries to bring down Merrimack’s Cayden Dine (4) duirng Friday night’s game at MHS’ Student Memorial Field. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

Merrimack also had two drives stall in South territory in the first half and the Panthers answered with scores.

“We wanted to stop the momentum right away,”Porter said, noting Ryan Jansen played well on defense in Tripp’s absence. “Defense in general. That’s a great offense, they’ve got a lot of weapons there. I’m happy with the way we played.”

“Good team offensively, they tackle well on defense,” Jackson said. “They were very well coached, in the right position. Unfortunately they made a lot of big plays; they have a lot of players who can make big plays.”

South added two more scores, Fish’s third TD reception, this one of 19 yards, plus a 49-yard Baker TD run in the final minute of the third. A conversion pass to Levesque made it running time for the fourth.

“They have really good players that make good plays,” Jackson said. “That’s what happens.”