You never know what incredible, explosive offensive or defensive feat you’re going to see at a Souhegan High School football game these days.

But in Saturday’s 47-14 Division II semifinal rout of Pelham, the Sabers took that idea to another level.

How about 20 points in 43 seconds? If you blinked at Calvetti field, you missed it.

Even arguably the state’s best player, Saber running back/linebacker Ryland Raudelunas, had never seen that before.

“Never,” arguably the team’s best player, Ryland Raudelunas, said. “It’s crazy. It’s what our offense can do, we’re explosive.”

Neither had his quarterback, Michael Fiengo.

“I have not, no,” he said. “Today was the first day.”

Here’s how it happened: Brody Smith, 85-yard kickoff return for a TD to start the second half; two-point conversion fails, 11:47 on the clock.

Andrew Healey, the Sabers suddenly not-so-secret weapon, lines a hard line drive kick that deflected off a Python, recovered by Souhegan at the Pelham 27. Pass to a wide open Smith for a TD, Healey PAT, 11:27.

Another Healey hard on-sides boot off a Python, Sabers recover. Next play a pass to a wide open Raudelunas, 42-yard TD, Healey kick. Clock says 11:17 left in the third quarter. Running time.

The squib kick is a weapon that the Sabers used once in while, and yesterday was certainly more than once.

“I mean, I think going back and forth, do you kick it deep, do you pooch it, do you squib kick it,” Bowkett said. “I think it’s a good weapon to have on kickoffs.

“Our kickoff team did a really nice job, our kicker Andrew Healey did a really nice job. Really proud of those guys for executing today. Sometimes we don’t get any balls back, sometimes we get a couple back. That was pretty awesome today.”

The poor Pythons, who were hoping their late first half TD could get them back in the game at 27-7, simply didn’t know what hit them.

Pelham coach Jason Riley was still amazed at what he saw a half hour later.

“No words,” he said. “Still kind of trying to process that, keep the kids together, the coaching staff together at that point. The wheels fell off. There’s no other way to explain it or process that one.”

The thing is, they knew those kind of hard Healey kicks were coming.

“That’s exactly what we talked about,” Riley said. “We felt like we at least showed some life, could do some things. We made a couple of adjustments offensively that we thought would definitely help us. So it was ‘Let’s come out, get that ball back.'”

Souhegan’s Brody Smith is well ahead of Pelham’s Domenic Peranello (2) on his way to the end zone during Saturday’s Division II semifinal in Amherst.(Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

And during the week in practice, Riley had a soccer kicker replicate what the Sabers like to do.

“We were a little aggressive with our soccer kicker that we wanted to kick it at the front line. We’ve been repping and really successful in practice and get the ball back right away. Well, (Healey) kicked a hard line drive and we couldn’t cover. It bit us. We had a little bit of a gamble.We had some momentum, we wanted to try and sieze it and crawl back into it.”

Instead they had to crawl home.

You can bet the Trinity Pioneers, who Souhegan will face in next Saturday’s Division II title game at Pinkerton Academy’s Memorial Field, will be practicing it all week. Will it work?

Ironically, yours truly’s broadcast partner on Nashua ETV (shameless plug), play-by-play man John Collins, has been lobbying all season for those type of hard line drive bullets off a front line return team member. Collins called the game Saturday for the NFHS Network, and saw his dream come true. He wonders if coaches like Bowkett have heard him. The NFL is on the verge of getting rid of the onsides kick. Saturday showed it may not need to happen, right?

“That kid Healey is a weapon,” Collins said in a text. “Not long til we see it in an NFL game.”

Like we said, Souhegan football. Catch it. Pelham couldn’t.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on X @Telegraph _TomK.