Bedford football bounces back with shutout of Manchester Central (video)

BEDFORD - The Bedford High School football team was eager to get back on the field to wipe away the memory of its previous game.

So when the opportunity to move this week's game against Manchester Central up a day, coach Zach Matthews was all for it, and now, the Bulldogs can spend an extra day thinking about a win.

Joe Mikol threw for three touchdowns in the first half Thursday night and Bedford's defense held Central in check for most of the night while collecting three interceptions, as the Bulldogs took a 34-0 win over the Little Green in a Division I North Conference game. It was Central's first game since Sept. 3, after the program had been put on a COVID-19 pause.

After falling to Goffstown 28-7 the previous week, Bedford was looking to wipe away the bad taste that game left in its collective mouth as soon as possible.

"That was one of the things when we were talking about possibly moving the game, for me, we had a sour taste in our mouths," Matthews said. "That Goffstown performance, we felt we didn’t play our best, so you want to get back out there as soon as you can. That’s one of the hard things about football, you have a whole week to wait sometimes to get that sour taste out of your mouth."

Mikol helped the Bulldogs (3-2) get started on that right away, as he connected with Domminic Tagliaferro for a 51-yard touchdown pass on the first drive of the game for a 7-0 lead. The senior quarterback finished the night 11 of 17 passing for 232 yards and three touchdowns, the other two going to senior Andrew Grudinskas, who had five catches for 153 yards to go with the touchdowns.

Logan Sfeir, who missed the game against Goffstown, returned to rush for 72 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries, and also played a big role on defense.

"Logan is a huge piece of what we do, so having him in there in the running game is big, and it’s also big at defensive end," Matthews said. "(Grudinskas) is another kid who I think was displeased with his performance last week. There were a couple of situations where 50-50 balls were in the air and the kid from Goffstown went up and got them.

"The biggest thing for Andrew is that he came in and busted his butt this week and we looked at some things. He knows he can play better football and I think he did (Thursday)."

Tagliaferro finished with three catches for 80 yards to go with his touchdown and Ledger Russell had 37 yards rushing and a touchdown on five carries. Joel Poltronieri had two interceptions on defense while Tagliaferro had the other.

Central (0-2) got a gutsy performance from quarterback Jayden Hann, who was 7 of 19 passing for 69 yards and three interceptions, while Aiden Kelley had two catches for 23 yards and Kdin Preston rand for 28 yards on 10 carries.

"After having a month off and after dealing with all the protocols that we had to deal with, I could not be prouder of the guys," Central coach Ryan Ray said. "They came out and played extremely hard and they stood toe-to-toe with a very good team. Obviously, the very good team made a lot more plays than we did, but couldn’t more proud of your guys.

"We were a little bit closer than the score indicated. For the most part, the level of compete was ridiculously high by our guys. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of rust out there, so the level of execution didn’t meet our level of our effort."

Bedford led 7-0 at the end of the first quarter, but a blocked punt by Finn O'Neil gave the Bulldogs a first down at the Central 32 two plays into the second. On fourth-and-8, Mikol hit Grudinskas for a 30-yard touchdown to make it 14-0.

The Little Green were forced to punt on their next drive, but the snap to Reagan Fort was short and by the time it got to him, he was forced to run with the ball. The senior's attempt came up a yard short of the first down, giving Bedford the ball at midfield.

On the next play, Mikol connected with Grudinskas on a short pass that the senior took 50 yards for a touchdown and a 21-0 lead.

Sfeir made it 28-0 on a 3-yard touchdown run with 6:09 remaining in the third quarter and Russell scored from 8 yards out with 6:44 left in the game.