Windham football beats Souhegan in battle of unbeatens (video)

WINDHAM – The coaching staff of Windham High School football team puts a lot of pressure on the defense.

That happens when most of a team’s kickoffs aren’t that much deeper than an onside kick, giving the other team good field position.

Against Souhegan on Saturday, the Jaguars were up to the task. The Sabers drove inside the Windham 30-yard line five times and the Jaguars’ defense held on four of them on the way to a 21-7 win over Souhegan.

The win keeps Windham (5-0) unbeaten and in the driver’s seat in the Division II South Conference.

“Coach (Jack) Byrne does a great job and I trust him completely,” Windham coach Bill Raycraft said. “We give him free reign. We don’t have a lot of room to bend and the kids know we trust them to make a play and they come up and do it.”

While the defense was making stops, the offense was eating up the clock. Windham was five of eight on third and fourth down in the second half, and on one drive, had the ball for nearly 10 minutes.

That drive stalled at Souhegan’s 1-yard line, but it set up the Jagaurs’ third touchdown of the day in the fourth quarter that put the game away.

“That’s a good team, but we certainly had our opportunities and we didn’t take advantage of them,” Souhegan coach Mike Lochman said. “We were in the red zone three, maybe four, times and we didn’t capitalize when we were down in there. This is not a team that you can leave opportunities on the shelf with. You’ve got to take advantage of every single one of them. We didn’t do that.”

Griffin Lippold was just 5 of 7 passing for Windham, but had 150 yards through the air and two touchdowns, one a 75-yard catch-and-run to Micah Sundman to open the scoring in the second quarter, and the other a 20-yard strike to Kyle Anderson. Ben Emrick added 62 yards rushing and a touchdown while Victor Pizzotti added 96 yards on the ground.

“We’re a little different than we were last year,” Raycraft said. “We can pound it with the best of them and I think these guys know it’s going to take that moving forward.”

Cam Kinney led the Sabers (3-1) with 97 yards rushing and a touchdown, but no one else had more than 50 yards on offense. Souhegan had just 67 yards in the second half, scoring its lone touchdown after a bad snap by Windham on a fourth-down punt gave the Sabers the ball at the Jaguars’ 17.

The Sabers’ other trips deep into Windham territory did not end so well.

Souhegan got the ball to the Windham 18-yard line on its second drive and then to the 20 on its third, but both times, the Sabers came up short on fourth down.

Emrick’s touchdown made it 14-0 with 2:05 left in the first half, but Souhegan moved back down to the Windham 22. On second-and-4, however, Mancini was picked off by Sundman with 35 seconds left in the half.

The Sabers had one more shot in the fourth quarter, but after having a first-and-goal at the Windham 2, Souhegan fumbled on two of the next three plays, including on fourth down.

“As far as gutting it out, and making the plays, I loved that,” Raycraft said. “We knew Mike (Lochman) was going to have his guys ready and they stacked the box and we knew we’d have to play tough.”