We are back with the 2017 football season debut of The Thursday Thoughts where we preview the biggest games of the week from all three divisions.

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 We will be out at two games on Friday night.

 Jennifer Chick-Ruth & I will be in Derry Friday night when Pinkerton Academy hosts Nashua South.

 Pete Tarrier & The Great Jon Kesty will be down the road in Merrimack when the Tomahawks take on Bishop Guertin.

 We will bring you all the highlights and the post-game interviews with the winning teams on Saturday morning. You can also hear Pete & I re-cap every Friday night game and preview the Saturday slate of games on The New Hampshire High School Football Show from 9 to 11 am, which you can listen to right here on our website homepage.

 

 Division I

 Nashua South (0-1) at Pinkerton Academy (1-0)

 I’m not going to claim to have spent any time with Nashua South head coach Scott Knight this summer but I can reasonably surmise that when he took a look at his 2017 schedule and saw Weeks 1 through 4 going; Salem (my pick in the conference and if that surprised you last week it doesn’t today) at Pinkerton (if you’ve never heard of Brian O’Reilly,,welcome to New Hampshire..enjoy the foliage), at Merrimack (never an easy place to win) and at Nashua North (the rivalry game) there was head shaking involved along with some under the breath comments not suitable for this website.

 Nashua South is a good football team but that is a killer stretch to open the season. If the Panthers get out of that stretch 2-2 the schedule eases up considerably. The immediate concern is stopping the Astros rushing attack after Salem ran for a whopping 415 yards against them in the opener.

 Sean Holland is one of the best quarterbacks in the state, will he test a very good Pinkerton secondary led by junior Ryan Auger early on? We think Pinkerton is set up for a very big bounce back year but we will know more after this one Friday night.

 We will bring you all the play by play and highlights.

 

 Bishop Guertin (0-1) at Merrimack (1-0)

 You don’t ever want to overreact to Week 1 but the issue for Bishop Guertin a year ago was that they could score with anybody (you’ll be watching QB Sam Raitt in the CHaD game next July) but they couldn’t stop the run. Teams like Exeter wore down their defense and controlled the clock. Keeping Raitt and a prolific passing game on the sidelines.

 On opening night Londonderry ran up & down the field to the tune of 382 yards rushing, with Jeff Wiedenfield responsible for 248 of them. On Friday night Merrimack head coach Kip Jackson will take his shots down the field when BG loads the box but he will run Tomahawks all-state running back Joe Eichman until BG proves they can stop him. Even if that means giving him the football 25 times.

 Bishop Guertin wide receiver Austin Hiscoe is a player to watch in this one. The younger brother of all-state quarterback JT Hiscoe had an impressive debut last Saturday night (Austin Hiscoe Player Page) and will be a focus of the Merrimack defense.

 Pete Tarrier and Jon Kesty will bring you full coverage of this one with highlights and post-game interviews.

 

 Division II

 Windham (1-0) at Milford (0-1)

 The Milford-Con Val opener last week, a game won by Con Val in overtime (Highlights of Milford/Con Val) was as close to a playoff feel as you are going to get on an opening weekend.

 There just isn’t the room for error that there might be in the other two divisions and the look on Paul Landau’s face when Pete was interviewing him after the win looked like a man who knew he had just earned a very big tie-breaker that may come in handy down the line.

 Keith Jones’ team now gets a Week 2 match-up with a Windham team that looked every bit the juggernaut in Week 1 that they were a year ago. Tommy Emrick, Jake Aleksa and Seth Maffeo all rushed for over 60 yards in an easy win over a good Hollis-Brookline team that lost quarterback Joey Delaney to an injury early on.

 The question for Milford is if they will get back any of their missing lineman from the opener? Mike Boucher and Ryan Fitzpatrick didn’t play against Con Val and Jones’ team may be without both again against the conference favorite. That is bad news against Bill Raycraft’s team. Windham has as much depth as any team in  Division II and they will wear you out by the 3rd quarter if you’re not able to rotate guys in & out.

 

 Division III

 Somersworth (1-0) at Stevens (1-0)

 Did we label the champs ‘rebuilding’ too soon?

 A 46-7 opening weekend win at Mascoma was a pretty emphatic statement that we did but the truth is we’re going to know a lot more about Paul Silva’s team after this one.

 Somersworth is coming off a very impressive opening weekend win at Winnisquam. The Bears defense had no answer for Dan Hodgdon’s team as Anthony McHugh ran for 132 yards and three touchdowns on just six carries. All-state back Ray Mills added 91 yards on 11 carries and as soon as Somersworth knocked Winnisquam QB Phil Nichols (arm) out of the game with an injury the rout was on.

 Stevens got contributions from a number of players in their victory as Keaghan McAllister & Joe Desilets scored a pair of touchdowns, Damon Roy also found the end zone and Baylor Rozzell had a 72 yard interception return for a score.

 The strength of this Stevens team is that they return almost their entire offensive and defensive lines from a year ago. If last weekend was any indication the new skill players are more than capable of finding the open hole in the line and getting through it quickly.

 These are two very physical and well coached football teams. This could end up being the game of the weekend, regardless of division.

 

 Campbell (1-0) at Inter-Lakes-Moultonborough (1-0)

  Heavyweight battle in Meredith on Saturday afternoon as our two pre-season favorites square off.

 Greg Gush’s Cougars saw three running backs go over 100 yards in the opener as Ryan Yanuszweski (154 & a TD), Keegan Mills (148 yds. & a TD) and Nick Boucher (100 yards on just 5 carries) led Campbell to a 41-0 win over Raymond. Defensively Campbell pitched a shutout behind Mills, Devin Ventura (the greatest 70’s private eye name of all time) and Nick Boucher.

 It will be a lot tougher on Saturday against pre-season player of the year Andrew Brothers (who was one of our five candidates for Adrenaline Fundraising/Buffalo Wild Wings Player of the Week) and emerging tight end Jayden Lara. The Lakers have a lot of key members of last year’s Division III runner-ups back but this is their first test against a championship caliber team.

 It will begin with the Lakers ability to stop Campbell’s ground game. Gush is not afraid to throw the football but when you have three players go over the century mark on the ground…why even fool around putting the ball up in the air?

 This will be the result to watch in Division III this weekend.