\n\t\t<\/aside>\nMascoma is on the brink of back-to-back state championships as they take on the Hillsboro-Deering in Saturday\u2019s NHIAA Division IV state title game at Laconia High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Hillcats, who were 6-1 in the regular season, were the one thorn in the defending champions\u2019 side this season. Hillsboro-Deering defeated the Royals, who finished the regular season 5-1, their only loss, 26-14, in September. A loss that served as a reminder that details matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went into that game a little bit on the overconfident side,\u201d Royals\u2019 Head Coach John Daley said. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t hit our assignments; we let the details kind of fade to the background.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nSince that loss, Mascoma has run through their competition, picking up commanding wins against Winnisquam, 40-7, and Farmington-Nute, 56-6, along with a forfeit victory over Franklin.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the Hillcats have been dominant in their own right since they suffered their only loss of the season, 51-27 to Somersworth in October, defeating Newfound, 41-0, Farmington-Nute, 48-22, and Raymond, 54-18, to wrap up the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both squads continued that dominance into their semifinal matchups last weekend, as Hillsboro-Deering dispatched Farmington-Nute 35-14, and Mascoma picked up a 16-0 win after Raymond forfeited in the second quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nThat forfeit is a source of frustration for the Royals, their head coach said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a variety of different reasons, we had three teams back out of playing us,\u201d Daley said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a chance to play football \u2014 I\u2019ve got a team full of guys that are upset that their senior year, they\u2019ve missed out on three games.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the abbreviated game kept his squad healthy, it had its drawbacks, including leaving questions about whether aspects of their game plan would work and limiting valuable reps.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nDespite that frustration, Daley is hopeful his squad can use it to help fuel a good performance on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In terms of preparations this week, Daley emphasized that they did not reinvent the wheel. \u201cWe\u2019re going to do what we do well, and try to do it better than we have before, so just going over assignments, and fine-tuning the \u2018ifs\u2019 \u2014 if they do this, what do we do,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mascoma\u2019s sideline boss is expecting a big game from the boys up front on the offensive side of the ball. \u201cWe have one of the largest offensive lines in a long time,\u201d Daley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\nOn top of that, some players to look out for offensively for the Royals include their dynamic senior duo of fullback Paxten Roberts and wide receiver Declan Lyons, who each scored in last weekend\u2019s semifinal against Raymond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Defensively, senior defensive end Colin Myers and senior linebacker Colin Burns are some players who could be factors in attempting to stymie the Hillcats\u2019 offense, which was led last weekend by senior running back Robert King, who rushed for 177 yards and four touchdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The key to the Royals\u2019 victory lies in executing assignments and maintaining pressure. \u201cCoach Wood over there, he knows football, he\u2019s got a great team, so we\u2019ve got to keep the pressure on and try to force them to be in uncomfortable positions,\u201d Daley said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for whether Mascoma is feeling any added pressure with a chance to repeat as champions, its head coach gave a resounding no.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just having fun playing the game we enjoy,\u201d Daley said. \u201cWe\u2019re excited for the opportunity to do it, but there\u2019s no expectation, there\u2019s no pressure, we\u2019re just looking to enjoy ourselves and have a good Saturday of football.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s final at Bank of NH Stadium at Laconia High kicks off at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source vnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mascoma is on the brink of back-to-back state championships as they take on the Hillsboro-Deering in Saturday\u2019s NHIAA Division IV state title game at Laconia High.\u00a0 The Hillcats, who were 6-1 in the regular season, were the one thorn in the defending champions\u2019 side this season. Hillsboro-Deering defeated the Royals, who finished the regular season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2157915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[22672,413287],"class_list":["post-2157914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-latest-news","tag-mascoma-valley-regional-high-school"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Mascoma-High-Royals-aim-for-back-to-back-state-titles.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2157914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2157916,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2157914\/revisions\/2157916"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2157915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2157914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2157914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2157914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}