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FOOTNOTES: NHIAA Week 5

Four things we learned during Week 5 of the NHIAA season:

1. The level of respect for Windham went up another notch.

The Jaguars improved their Division I record to 4-1 by winning a physical battle with previously unbeaten Winnacunnet, 21-0, in Hampton on Friday night. It’s a victory that will be extra-important when it comes time to seed teams for the Division I playoffs since Winnacunnet is in the best position to finish first in Division I East and will garner the Jaguars a lot of points.

Winnacunnet, which began the night ranked No. 2 in the Power Poll, scored 150 points in its first four games.

“To beat them it was going to be a fist fight – a tough physical game – and that’s exactly what it was,” Windham coach Matt Lee said. “It’s no secret they’re going to run the ball right at you, and they did that effectively for four games, so that was really the game plan. Let’s not let them run the ball in the A and B gaps. If they have to do something else then we’ll be satisfied.

“We stressed to our safeties you are not a center fielder backpedaling. You are basically playing linebacker from 7 yards. You’re playing downhill.Everybody had to play downhill.”

WIth help from his offensive line, running back Mike Brearley supplied most of the Windham  offense by carrying the ball 14 times for 136 yards and two touchdowns.

Brearley opened the scoring on a 48-yard run with 4:00 left in the first half, and added a 7-yard TD run with 4:12 remaining in the game.

Windham quarterback Jackson Wright completed 13-of-17 passes for 119 yards, and tight end/defensive end Sam Roidoulis caught five passes for 62 yards.

“We knew this was going to be a big-boy game,” Lee said. “There’s no finesse against these guys.”

2. We know Merrimack Valley is good, and we’re about to find out how good.

The Pride raised its Division II record to 5-0 by beating Trinity, last year’s Division II champion, 33-0 in Manchester on Friday night. Jubal Tubbs scored two touchdowns in the win. Merrimack Valley also received touchdowns from Nate Wallace, Kingston Claremont and Desean Johnson.

Merrimack Valley has feasted on some of the weaker teams in the division: Trinity and Hollis-Brookline are both winless, while Bow and St.Thomas each have one win. Merrimack Valley’s other victory came against Kennett, which is 2-3.

The level of difficulty is about to go up, however, as Merrimack Valley’s next three games are against Kingswood (3-2), Milford (4-1) and Plymouth (5-0). If the Pride can win at least two of those three contests it’ll likely be playing at home in the Division II quarterfinals.

3. The Division III playoffs are going to be very interesting.

The top of the division looks like this:

Inter-Lakes/Moultonborough (5-0)
Somersworth (4-1)
Monadnock (4-1)
Campbell (4-1)

Somersworth’s lone loss came against ILMA (35-30); Monadnock lost to Somersworth (35-32); and Campbell lost to ILMA (33-22). There’s depth below those four as well. Kearsarge, for example, is seventh in the standings, but is coming off a 16-14 loss to ILMA on Friday night.

4. The Game of the Year during the Division IV regular season will take place Saturday.

Newfound (4-0) and Newport/Mount Royal (4-0) are the only unbeaten teams in the division, and will meet Saturday in Bristol. Since every other team in Division IV has at least two losses, the winner of that matchup will likely be the top seed for the Division IV playoffs.

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