Week One is in the books for local high school football.

How’d it go? What did you think? It seems strange to start the season on the unofficial final weekend of summer, Labor Day Weekend, but that’s the way it usually is in this state. Here are a few takeaways from things that happened Opening Weekend:

First, the crowds were great at Stellos Stadium for the Nashua North-Bedford opener on Friday night and the Bishop Guertin-Nashua South contest on Saturday night. But yikes, we wouldn’t be surprised if some are still sitting in their cars stuck in the long line waiting to get out of the parking lots, especially after Saturday night’s BG-South game. One way in, one way out never really works, does it.

—- The games at Stellos dragged on unnecessarily. Officials trying to figure out calls, and it seems no one huddles anymore, as QBs come to the line of scrimmage and look to the sidelines for the play, and often it took awhile. But hey, it was Week One for everybody. It’s when this stuff goes on Week 9 that it gets frustrating.

—- There was one apparent blown call this weekend at Stellos, and it was a pretty big one. Bedford was driving but quarterback Danny Black was under pressure the entire night. The Bulldogs were inside the 10, driving to a potential score with seconds remaining in the first half, trailing 12-0. Jack Peters leveled Black just as he was getting ready to throw and the ball got loose, only to be scooped up by North’s Toby Brown, Jr. who raced 78 yards for a scoop and score.

Problem is, just about every replay seems to indicate Black’s arm was going forward, which would mean incomplete pass. Ooops. It’s a bang-bang play, true, and of course there’s no replay booth (please, no, there are enough foolish delays in these games). Oh well.

Nashua South’s Karsten Lemire had an impressive debut as the Panthers starting quarterback on Saturday night. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

—- One of the most impressive performances came in the first half of Saturday night’s South-BG game, and it came from the team (Panthers) that lost. It was quarterback Karsten Lemire, who completed 11 straight passes in the first 24 minutes. Hey, this is high school football, and that doesn’t usually happen, but it’s hard to do at any level. Kudos, kid.

— Anyone remember last year’s Nashua South-Salem season opener when in the second half the Panthers had at least nine players go down with muscle cramps? That wasn’t a problem for the Panthers this time, although the Cardinals had some issues as some key players had to come off the field, but the team was up 30 points so no biggie. It was a biggie in Milford, when the Spartans jumped out to a 27-0 lead but had all sorts of cramping issues before winning 27-16. It’s happening more and more at the start of the season each year, it seems.

—- The other big play on the weekend – or coaching decision – came when Windham had a furious rally against Pinkerton, and scored a TD late in the game to pull to within 28-27 and could have sent the game to OT with an extra point. But the Jaguars opted to go for two and and were stopped. Oh well. More and more you see coaches opt to avoid overtime, one way or another,don’t you?

—- Nice moment on Saturday night for the Trisciani family. BG head coach John Trisciani’s dad, also John, has been a noted coach in the region for years, but unfortunately was a victim of job cuts at Saint Anselm this summer. That’s the bad news. The good news is that made him available to do something that he had never done before: coach with his son. So Trisciani’s father is now on the Cardinal staff, was on the sidelines running one of the BG units Saturday night and the family took a nice photo of the two together after the game. Nice moment to cap off the weekend.

Tom King may be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or@Telegraph _TomK.