Bishop Guertin football powers its way past Nashua South (video)

NASHUA - The Bishop Guertin High School football team is starting show that it can do many things on offense.

Whether its a long drive, a long touchdown run, or a quick strike through the air, it was all working Friday night for the Cardinals.

Bishop Guertin held the ball for more than 30 minutes and shut down Nashua South's offense after the Panthers' opening drive on the way to a 35-7 win in a Division I West Conference game at Stellos Stadium.

Charlie Bellavance led the way for the Cardinals (4-1) with 174 yards and three touchdowns on 27 carries as Bishop Guertin outgained South 372-112, with 294 of those yards coming on the ground.

"Our (offensive) line surprised me so much this year," Bellavance said about his team's success running the ball. "I’ve got to give it to them. There’s so much chemistry between all of them and that just flows into everything else. It starts with the o-line and then through the backfield. If they have that chemistry, it just comes right straight to us in the backfield."

Matt Santosuosso added 86 yards on the ground and was also 4 of 4 passing for 63 yards and a 36-yard touchdown pass to Cody Szymansky. Michael MacDonough also had a 14-yard touchdown run on the Cardinals' first possession of the second half.

"It was a complete game for the most part," Bishop Guertin coach John Trisciani said. "Their running game is so good and we were able to bottle it up. I couldn’t believe that, that was the most surprising thing. We had some good chunk plays in the running game and we’re winning the turnover battle and we’re doing a good job on special teams. It was a complete game."

The Cardinals recovered three fumbles by the Panthers (1-4), two of which came on special teams and led to Bishop Guertin touchdowns. The defense also held South to just 78 yards on the ground, including 27 yards and touchdown for Josh Compoh.

"Right now, I’m not worried about wins and losses," South coach Scott Knight said. "We’ve got to play better football. If we don’t, we’re going to continue to have these mental lapses. Some of the stuff we cleaned up, but then when you do that, something else is broken."

Bellavance gave Bishop Guertin the lead three plays into the game with a 42-yard touchdown run and South answered with a 13-play, 63-yard drive that took 5:27 off the clock and ended with a 1-yard scoring run by Compoh.

The defenses each forced a punt and South got another stop to open the second quarter, but the Panthers' Karsten Lemire couldn't handle the punt by Santosuosso and Bishop Guertin's Ethan Chmielecki recovered at the South 36. On the next play, Santosuosso hit Szymansky for a touchdown and a 14-7 lead.

South went three-and-out on its next possession, and this time, the Cardinals ate up the clock, going on a 15-play, 89-yard drive that used up 7:32 and ended in a 4-yard run by Bellavance with 2:19 left in the half.

Despite being down two touchdowns, Knight thought the Panthers were in a good spot if they could get down the field before the end of the half.

"We’re down two scores, but I felt like there were some things we could do," Knight said. "We had some mistakes, we missed a few blocks, just things that were uncharacteristic. I thought we could drive down, we had a couple of minutes and all three timeouts, maybe we can pop one in and then we get the second half kickoff. We turned it over. Thankfully, we held them."

Connor Rowsell fumbled on South's second play and Luke Kourkoulakos recovered for Bishop Guertin. The Cardinals couldn't do anything with the extra possession and took the 21-7 lead into halftime.

"That’s one of the things we talked about after the Merrimack game, we had such an awesome first half, but we didn’t play extremely well in the second half," Trisciani said. "They actually outscored us. We went into halftime, and obviously, we’re excited, but as we continue to get better, the expectations are higher. We harp to finish the game."

After forcing a punt to open the second half, the Cardinals got the ball at midfield and MacDonough took over at quarterback, leading them on a seven-play touchdown drive. The sophomore improvised on his touchdown run, scampering for 14 yards after bobbling the snap.

The Panthers couldn't handle a squib kick on the kickoff and Kourkoulakos recovered the loose ball again, giving Bishop Guertin possession at the South 27. Five plays later, Bellavance scored from 5 yards out for a 35-7 lead with 4:10 remaining in the third quarter.

South picked up its only first down of the second half early in the fourth quarter, but punted the ball away with 9:38 remaining in the game. It would be the last time the Panthers saw the ball.

Bishop Guertin kept possession with a 15-play drive that ended with the Cardinals taking a knee at the South 3-yard line to end the game. The Cardinals finished the game with 31:22 time of possession.

"This whole thing is uncharted waters," Trisciani said. "We’re in a position there where we might have been able to score, but I remember when we were on the opposite end of these. We’re trying to hold on to the ball, keep guys healthy, and get out of here with a good win. We don’t take these for granted."