MANCHESTER, NH – Call it a game between two teams with nothing left to lose letting it all hang out. Call it a glorified scrimmage. Call it an offensive masterpiece or a defensive catastrophe. Call it the final Friday night for a set of seniors who may never play again. Call it an unseasonably cold October night at Gill Stadium.
Call it what you like, but no matter how those who saw this game remember things moving forward, the football game itself ended with the Panthers of Nashua South defeating the Manchester Central Little Green, 77-52.
South began their first drive on Central’s three-yard line and quickly capitalized, with Brandon Frost taking the ball into the end zone for the first of the game’s 17 touchdowns.
Central replied on the next drive with the first of Alex Hawkom’s five touchdown passes to Nick Olbrice, a 4-yard strike that left the Little Green within a point before South’s Dante Young answered with a touchdown pass of his own on the game’s next drive.
That strike was a 26-yard toss to Jason Compoh, with Central’s Emmanuel Munyana adding a four-yard touchdown run on the drive after that, keeping South’s advantage to 13-12.
After forcing a punt, Central took the lead, leading both sides to trade that lead back and forth until Central’s goal line stand heading into halftime limited South to just a 45-40 lead after two quarters.
The see-saw battle finally began to tilt in South’s favor near the end of the third quarter thanks to Jaylen Pacheco’s 36-yard touchdown run, followed by a critical red zone interception by South’s Michael Rutstein to prevent the Little Green from getting back within one score.
Although Central did add another touchdown, South added two more: one from Pacheco and another from Frost, slowly running out the clock on this contest of nearly non-existent tackling and extremely adept open field running on both sides.
Manchester Central head coach Ryan Ray declined to provide any comments on the record after the game, but Nashua South head coach Scott Knight had plenty of praise, both for his squad as well as for the passing acumen of Hawkom.
“I wouldn’t say we can do this every game, but it was a perfect storm for us,” said Knight. “and on the flip side it was a perfect storm on the other side because we had a few injuries in the secondary, so we expected to give up some points through the air.”
South ended with 462 rushing yards with Pacheco grabbing 194 and Frost getting 162. The two backs had four touchdowns apiece, with Jason Compoh also gaining a rushing touchdown as well as a receiving touchdown.
In addition to Munyana’s run and Hawkom’s five touchdown passes to Olbrice, Hawkom also connected with Miguel Gensee and Kevin Upton for scores.
Hawkom had 268 yards passing, 225 of which went to Olbrice, ending 22-for-38 through the air. Central also completed a 38-yard pass during a fake punt between Isaiah Jubrey and Joshua Jerome on the sixth drive of the first half.
South concludes its regular season at 4-6 while Central finishes 5-5.