Yes, the Bishop Guertin High School football team has a tough road game coming up Friday — note the special 6:30 p.m. start — at Timberlane. But one other local school has a tough road TRIP.

The Alvirne Broncos are at Keene on Saturday afternoon, then have to head to the seacoast for successive games at Spaulding of Rochester on Oct. 2 and Dover on Oct. 9. Now that is one heckuva road swing.

“We have a tough stretch coming up — Keene, Spaulding and Dover, all on the road,” Broncos coach Bobby Nimblett said. “Hopefully it will help us pull together as a football team. There’s some good stuff to that and hopefully that will be the case for us. It’ll pull us together as a team, we have to travle, us against Keene, us against Spaulding, us against Dover.

“Hey, hang together before we come back home.”

That won’t be until they face Winnacunnet on Oct. 16. But first thing’s first — the Broncos (1-2, 0-1 Division II) will be seeking their first league win on Saturday.

“You have to start with your first divisional win,” Nimblett said, “and hopefully go on a run from there.”

Wherever ‘There” may be.

BISHOP GUERTIN — This is the first major Division II test of the year for the unbeaten Cardinals, and certainly they’ll be facing the best running back on their schedule so far in Timberlane’s Derek Furrey. Two-hundred yard games are the norm for this kid; he had 212 yards and six touchdowns last week vs. Merrimack.

He’s the main target, to be sure, for Guertin linebackers Nick Phillips, Walter Kell and Co.

“We just have to run him down,” Guertin coach Tony Johnson said of Furrey. “He’s definitely the best running back in our division and one of the best in the state.  We have to make sure we don’t over-pursue.”

Johnson’s team must also make the adjustment from easy games vs. Merrimack and Spaulding to a very tough opponent in the Owls.  “We’ve talked about that,” Johnson said. “I want to get back to the level of play we had with Pinkerton. It’s an adjustment the kids have to make. We (the coaches) have to make sure they make the adjustment.”

MERRIMACK — The 0-3 Tomahawks, who face Manchester Memorial on Friday, are starving for a win. “After the last three weeks, we need it, we could really use it,” head coach Joe Batista said. “We have to play a lot better defensively. It’s just a couple of small things, a couple of players that aren’t doing their assignments. And with our offensive line, we need some continuity.”

Indeed, injuries, etc. have forced Batista to shuffle players in and out up front. He’s been pleasantly surprised by the play of junior two-way linemanTyler Baulier.

“He’s been a big surprise,” Batista said. “I knew he was going to be a good player. He’s been our most consistent lineman, both ways.”

– TOM KING