Souhegan's Ryland Raudelunas, left, cuts upfield on his way to a 20-yard TD during their recent regular season meeting. (Telegraph file photo by Dan Doyon)

AMHERST – There’s no place like home.

A year ago, the Souhegan High School football team had to head up to Plymouth for a semifinal battle, and they were able to pull of the upset in hostile territory.

But this year, with No. 4 Pelham (8-2) their Division II semifinal opponent, the Sabers are in the nice familiar confines of Calvetti Field. That’s because they’re the No. 1 seed and 10-0.

Especially on their fast track rather than the Pelham grass field. That should help a high powered offense that beat the Pythons 33-6 durng the regular season even more.

“I think so,” Souhegan coach Robin Bowkett said. “We don’t mind playing at home, it’s always nice being able to play at home one last time. The last time we had home field throughout the playoffs was 2020 (title win over Plymouth). …

“But these guys are players. They don’t take anything for granted, and they love the opportunity to play one more time on our home field. Hopefully the crowd is a good crowd. We’re just going to live in the moment, enjoy every bit of it, and have a lot of fun on Saturday and hope the outcome goes our favor.”

Things are really looking up for the defending champion Sabers. The closest game they had was at Plymouth, where they were 19-9 winners back on Oct. 18. The No. 3 Bobcats are at No. 2 Trinity tomorrow, also at 1 p.m., and the winners will square off a week from Saturday at Pinkerton Academy.

Also, consider this: Earlier in the season, Sabers QB Michael Fiengo was banged up and missed a couple of weeks; he’s playing his best football right now.

“Absolutely,” Bowkett said. “He’s been really dialed in. Last week he did a good job with his arm (three TD passes) and his feet (two rushing TDs). He looked the most explosive I’ve seen all year. That’s really good to see heading into the playoffs when it matters most.”

Against the Pythons in their first meeting, he completed 9 of 9 for a TD and rushed for two more. And Ryland Raudelunas rushed for 215 yards with two scores. Incredible, as he goes into this game with 1,356 yards and 17 TDs on the ground.

But a key for the Sabers will be their defense. The bent but didn’t break and allowed just a Kevin Hardy TD pass to Brady Williams to start the second half in the first meeting.

“We kind of settle down a little bit,” Bowkett said. “Keeping them out of their rhythm and doing our best to stop the run helped us a ton. I’ve got to imagine they’ll tweak some things to find some ways to run the ball and utilize Kevin Hardy some more if they have to.”

Making the Pythons one dimensional on offense will be the goal.

“For sure,” Bowkett said. “They’re always really good up front, they get after it, both sides of the ball. And they have a really dynamic running back in sophomore Luke Draper. But making any team one dimensional gives us a better shot.”

Raudelunas will be key defensively for the Sabers as well as he’s their best run stopper at linebacker leading the team in tackles. He is clearly the Sabers best player. Alex Sarfide runs the defense, and up front the Sabers have lately been without Sean Reardon, their best two-way lineman, and there’s hope that just maybe he could return soon, perhaps a game-time decision Saturday.

Also playing well against Pelham was Micah Dibble, Jon Bausha, Mason Mobley, and Patrick Casey. It’s all for one and one for all at the football.

“That’s one of our non-negotiables if you’re playing defense for the Souhegan Sabers,” Bowkett said. “If you’re not running to the football, you’re not playing defense for us.”

Playoff football can be different than regular season. What do the Sabers do to guard against Saturday being a different type of game?

“It’s always very hard to beat a really good team twice,” said Bowkett, whose team a year ago was living proof of that theory in beating two teams that beat the Sabers during the regular season. “So I think playoff football definitely feels different just because there is no tomorrow after these games.

“But in November it comes down to continuing to do what you did in August in being fundamentally strong in all facets of the game. If we can’t stop the run, we might not as well get off the bus.”

But there’s no bus Saturday, and that’s another edge for a team that’s had plenty o them this year.