Bedford football gets impressive D1 quarterfinal win over Salem (video)

BEDFORD - There was plenty of time for the Bedford High School football team to think about Saturday's Division I quarterfinal.

Having earned one of the division's three byes, the Bulldogs spent the extra time focusing on what was in front of them - a matchup with Salem - and not what might be down the road.

No. 3 Bedford wasted no time taking care of business, jumping out to a three-score lead in the first quarter and never looking back on the way to a 49-6 win over the No. 6 Blue Devils. The win puts Bedford in the semifinals, where it will travel to face No. 2 Portsmouth-Oyster River next weekend.

Brody Helton had four touchdowns, three in the game's first eight minutes, to go with 177 yards of offense as the Bulldogs (9-0) got out to a 35-0 lead with 3:32 remaining in the first half.

"You draw up a game plan, and you hope the things you are seeing come to fruition," Bedford coach Zach Matthews said. "I think that the kids, we had the bye week, and there were a lot of questions, even amongst ourselves. Is it going to be a good thing or a bad thing? Are we going to come out hitting on all cylinders?

"Our focus really this week was attacking this week and not looking any farther ahead. We had a lot of focus on this and that’s a really good Salem team. They won a lot of games and gave some people some tough games. I think our kids were really focused on the game plan. They came out and executed exactly what we hoped to do."

Helton ran for 107 yards and two scores on 13 carries and had two catches for 70 yards and two more scores, while Danny Black completed 7 of 11 passes for 138 and the two touchdowns to Helton.

Kevin Sheridan and Dom Tagliaferro also had rushing touchdowns of 8 and 56 yards, respectively, in the first half and Alek Corriveau had an 88-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

Bedford put up 426 yards of offense, including 288 on the ground, and averaged 11.1 yards per rush.

"It was amazing," Sheridan said of the Bedford performance. "Obviously love getting out there and getting the huge lead in the first half. It’s amazing getting the kids out there who may never see a playoff game."

Salem (7-3) got its only score on a 5-yard run by Kevin Todisco with 5:57 remaining in the third quarter. Colin Salkovitz led the Blue Devils with 53 rushing yards, while Todisco had 37 and Felix Gonzalez added 23.

The Blue Devils went three-and-out on their first two possessions, and by the time they got the ball back for their third, they were down 21-0. Salem had its best drive to that point, moving down to the Bedford 32-yard line, but quarterback Nolan Lumley was picked off by Tagliaferro to end the possession.

Starting from its own 14, Bedford put together a 10-play drive and faced fourth-and-2 at the Salem 21. Black found Helton for a short gain that the sophomore turned into a touchdown and a 28-0 lead early in the second quarter.

The grew to 42-0 by halftime, the sixth time in the last seven games the Bulldogs have scored 40 points or more.

"Every week, you’re going to see something different that you haven’t seen," Matthews said. "We’re faced with new challenges. We felt like we were going to be challenged by their physicality. It’s a different style of football than we play. We still pride ourselves on being physical. This is passing a test."