Bishop Guertin receiver Rocco Roy heads to the end zone despite the efforts of Exeter's Asher Bartell (3) during Thursday night's Division I clash at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Sometimes your best defense can be your offense.

Don’t be mistaken, the Bishop Guertin High School football defense did get the hang of how to handle the Exeter T offense ground game Thursday night at Stellos Stadium.

But it helped that the Cards offense put up a lot of points on the way to a 42-14 win.

The night was highlighted by senior quarterback Nate Bowen’s five TD passes, three to senior receiver Rocco Roy, making his season debut after missing last week’s opener with a lower body injury. The other two went to who else – Jake Bowen, Nate’s sophomore brother, one of them an incredible one handed grab off a tip inches before the ball hit the ground.

No doubt the senior QB is in heaven right now as the 2-0 Cards have put up 84 points in the two games. Bowen was an incredibly precise 19 of 20 for 314 yards and the five TDs. Roy in his return had six catches for 118 yards and the the three TDs.

“It’s really amazing for me,” he said. “I know I can throw the ball to any of my wide receivers, I have a lot of confidence, my line, and my running backs, and I’m glad the defense got a few stops for me to put up the score even more.”

It seemed like a tennis match early on as the teams traded scores, BG with Logan Curran’s 48-yard run and Exeter with Kenji Chase’s 30-yard jaunt. BG responded with a Roy 20-yard catch and run down the middle into the end zone; the only negative was a botched PAT attempt on a high snap.

No one knew it but that put BG ahead to stay. The Cards defense did get a stop on downs at their 38, and then the offense pounced; that was when Jake Bowen somehow snared a ball inches from the ground in the end zone with 7:57 to go before the half. The Cards got the two-point conversion for a 21-7 lead and seized control.

“I thought it was amazing,” the older Bowen said of his brother’s catch. “He kind of saved me on that throw, I’m glad he caught it.”

Again, BG began to pull away, but not until Exeter QB Tyler Ream found Chase Barrett behind the Cards’ defense for a 41-yard TD to pull the Blue Hawks to within 21-14 with just under six minutes to play in the half.

“Trying to replicate what they do (in practice) is hard,” Cards coach Anthony Nalen said. “Playing a Bill Ball-coached team, that’s a a lot. … We had to get at least one (series) where we got a stop, and score. We had to. That was our biggest concern. Once we were able to get up one or two (scores) we were able to put our foot on the gas and go.”

And they did just that. Bowen hit the speedy Roy on a 49-yard TD just four plays later, and with 1:03 left in the half Bowen hit Roy again on a 4-yard TD, the drive courtesy of a Jake Bowen interception. That made it 35-14 at halftime. The Bowen-to-Bowen connection struck again or a 7-yard score in the third quarter to account for the final.

And all Exeter coach Bill Ball could do was watch.

“We gave up a couple of big plays,” Ball said, his team now 1-1. “They’ve got skill everywhere, they’re a great team, well-coached. We’ve got to look at the film and get better. ..We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”

On the flip side, adding Roy to a receiving corps that had a good opening night a week ago just doesn’t seem fair.

“He’s definitely an uplift for that young group,” Nalen said. “We have two sophomores and two freshmen, and he’s the only senior. He kind of gives that veteran vibe to it.”

Defensively, Bishop Kearns was a force with four tackles and a sack, but Gavin Harnum had quite a game with eight tackles and Curran five. Rowen Hanson also had a sack.

To do that

“It just means we got a win tonight, really,” Nalen said. “It doesn’t mean anything against South. We’ve got to get back to film, get ready to go and get a good game plan in for South next week.”