Bedford faces first road test at Pelham

The Bedford High School football team takes its show on the road for the first time this season, when it travels to Pelham to face the Pythons Friday night.

The Bulldogs are coming off what might be the program’s biggest victory to date, and certainly one that will go a long way toward their playoff chances in Division III this season.

“It was a big victory for us,” Bedford coach Kurt Hines said of his team’s 20-14 win over Goffstown last Friday. “It meant a lot more personally for me, and for the program, knowing what we were going against.”

What Bedford was going against was a team that many pundits had picked to be the favorite in the division this season. But since playing Salem tough in the Queen City Jamboree, Goffstown has now lost back-to-back games to Concord and Bedford.

While the Grizzlies are reeling a bit, the Bulldogs are trying to maintain focus despite the big win.

“As a staff, we saw them as one of the top four teams, if not the top team, in the division,” Hines said. “It showed us that we’re a team that is light years ahead of where we were last year. We’re a team that can compete if we show up to play every week.”

After Bedford’s thrashing of Manchester West to open the season, Hines predicted that teams might begin to key on running back Jordan Garron, who had six touchdowns in that Week 1 win.

That’s what Goffstown did, and other players were able to step up for Bedford, including receiver Troy Stafford.

“They were dedicating so many people to Jordan Garron,” Hines said. “They did what we expected. We threw the ball about a total of 19 times. We found success with that because we had to pass more.”

This week, Bedford gets a taste of the unknown. Pelham is in its first season in Division III, after having years of success in Division V.

Pelham had made it to the championship game in three of the last seven years, including two undefeated seasons in 2007 and 2008. The Pythons opened up division play with a 45-0 loss to Con-Val last week.

“That makes it easy to look at as an easy game and that’s the worst thing we can do,” Hines said. “Coming into the season, I had heard nothing but great things. They’re not big, but they are fast. We need to contain the outside run and make sure we wrap up. They’re explosive little guys.”

Pelham managed just 140 total yards against Con-Val last week, with Joe Perrone leading the way with 39 yards rushing and 38 yards passing.

The teams will meet in Pelham at 7 p.m. Friday night.