At Nantucket Saturday there were two football games. One was staged on the playing field, properly, and Nantucket won convincingly, 34-0. Ultimately the only victim in that game was the playing field, and that will repair itself.

The other game was staged on the sidelines, between the Martha's Vineyard High School and the parents of the football players. Three players had been suspended on the eve of the game for failure to meet academic standards for eligibility. Some parents were angry, some players hurt and confused. There were no winners that battle.

On Main street the boosters, coming from the airport, saw the sign "Whalers 60 Vineyard 0," but there was no roar of dissent from the bus. One boy suggested "We're going to kill 'em," but no one answered him. They, and the young Vineyard men they had come to support, were foreigners, though just minutes by air from home.

Nantucket alumni nearly surrounded the field. The players could look behind them in the stands, into the end zones, and even across the field to the Vineyard side and see the heroes of past Whaler campaigns. They have been close to the top of Division 5 for the last nine years, excepting the black season of '85, last year, when they not only lost to the Vineyard, but to three other teams as well.

Perhaps. that is why this particular Whalers team needs the graveyard - with crosses set up over the graves of this year's opponents. Times have changed On Nantucket. As one Vineyard veteran said, "Vito used to dress 85 guys, out of the hundred guys in the school. Now he dresses 35. It's not the same."

Gary Yates, captain of the Nantucket defense two years ago, looked down at the graves and said, "We didn't need this kid stuff. We just went to Super Bowls. The Vineyard doesn't have a chance. The only time we lose is when we beat ourselves. We beat ourselves in the first game this year, and we were beating ourselves all the time last year. Vito almost quit because the seniors didn't care. He doesn't like losing.

"Look, we played together since we were eight years old - in club football, in junior high and in high school. We knew each other. You can't let your friends down." The Nantucket high school king and queen were crowned at the game, and the queen was a marine. Maybe the Vineyarders have to establish a beachhead on Nantucket :before they can win there.

What about life after high school? "All I miss is the football. But you get over it. You stay away from it, don't go to a game for a year, and it doesn't hurt so much," said Gary.

Gary was right. The Vineyard did not have a chance. On their first series of downs, the Vineyarders went backwards - James Maciel backpedaled furiously as a wall of growling blue Whalers fell on him. Throwing a football over that wall was strictly Hail Mary. The Vineyard punted into the wind and from then on it was all Nantucket.

The Whalers scored the winning touchdown a minute into the game - running the ball straight at and over the Vineyard for the score. Then, after the teams traded fumbles, Nantucket's all-star running back Chris Fox broke the game open when he cut back against the grain and sliced through the Vineyard defense for the score.

But the Vineyard blocked the extra point attempt, and the Vineyard side of the field cheered as if they had scored the touchdown, not Nantucket. The purple and white still has a chance, fans told themselves. The Vineyard men were hitting hard. The defense was playing the explosive Nantucket squad nearly even. They needed the big play, and they got it - James Maciel hitting Reeves Coggins, who made a tough sliding catch in traffic inside the 10. But then the Nantucket defense pulled a Gary Yates. They simply denied the score.

Most of the disappointed offense stayed on the field to play defense, as a new, fresh wave of Whalers crashed into them. It was too much. The Vineyarders gave ground, and inevitably the touchdown near the end of the third quarter. And that was the game, at least the game played on the field.

The fourth quarter was ugly. The Vineyard crashed the Nantucket line before the snap — offsides. Two boys fought away from the ball. The Vineyard's Phil Packish was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct. Another personal foul followed, this time on Chris Wey. Mike Joyce said, "Something must be going on. He never says anything." Then Tim Anthony, who was shouting at the players all day, screamed at the official, and earned a personal foul. The penalties kept the Vineyard pinned in their end. At one point they had so many debts to pay after a Nantucket touchdown that Nantucket lined up for a kickoff at midfield.

Nantucket scored two more touchdowns, and what had been an honorable game in the third quarter turned into something worse than defeat in the fourth. We heard the usual comment — "It's only a game"— but it rang hollow.

What made the stakes so high?

"Thursday afternoon," said head coach Bob Tankard, "Dr. Scotten [principal] told me that three of my starters — Tony DeHaro, Niko Vega and Sloan Rogers — would not be able to play Saturday's game, the biggest game of the year, due to academic problems."

On Friday night, according to Roger Wey, "The pep dinner was like a morgue." The Vineyard was digging its own grave. As Myrna Araujo said, "Physically our guys are up to this Nantucket team. It's the mental part. The kids said themselves that the hardest thing was not the game. The hardest thing was dealing with all this nonsense between Scotten and the sports department. The kids were caught in the middle and that's got to stop."

Said one cheerleader after the game, "We love our football players, win or lose. They're still our guys."