Plymouth football uses depth to run past Bow

PLYMOUTH – Coming off its toughest game of the season, the Plymouth High School football team welcomed a Bow squad that had won three games in a row to set up an important midseason game between the Division II East Conference foes.

After pulling out an eight-point win over Kingswood last week, the Bobcats unleashed a brigade of runners to silence the Falcons’ momentum.

Plymouth used 13 different ball carriers to gain a total of 244 yards as its defense picked up its third shutout of the season in Saturday afternoon’s 34-0 victory over Bow on George C. Zulias Field.

The Bobcats improved to 5-0 on the season, while the Falcons dropped to 3-2.

“We’ve got a lot of running backs and they all do a good job. If you can do that, you can keep guys fresh at the end of the game into the second half and the fourth quarter.” Plymouth coach Chris Sanborn said. “The lineman did a nice job up front and played better than last week and we’ve got a plethora of backs who can carry the ball and you saw that (Saturday). We’re very fortunate.”

Plymouth junior Ben Valenti paced the attack with 65 yards on 10 carries, while senior Tristan Patridge added 59 yards on seven carries. Valenti leads Plymouth with 539 rushing yards on 63 carries and is tied with fullback Robbie Thorne for the team lead in touchdowns (seven).

Thorne bulldozed his way to a pair of 3-yard touchdown runs in the first half.

“I’m proud of how we played, we had this game circled on the calendar for a while and we came out and executed just like we thought we were going to do,” Valenti said. “Our depth is really our strong suit on this team. We’ve got a number of running backs that are fresh and get the job done.”

Plymouth immediately attacked its vision with five different ball carries on an opening drive that ended with a 35-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Luke Diamond to Jaxon Rineer to give the Bobcats a 7-0 with 8:33 left in the opening quarter.

“They were stacking the box and once we got up, we really didn’t go back to the pass too much,” Sanborn said. “We like to go play-action pass and it set the tone early on that first drive.

Thorne’s first touchdown late in the first quarter capped off a 10-play, 65-yard drive and his next touchdown came midway through the second quarter after Plymouth recovered a fumble on Bow’s 29-yard line.

Plymouth’s Brohdi Rosseau recovered a fumble on the ensuing possession to help set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Logan Marsh to help build a 28-0 halftime lead.

“I think we played amazing. We were expecting it to be a hard-fought game, but we put them away pretty quick,” Plymouth captain Eli Crane said. “Depth is our biggest thing. We have running back after running back, and if someone goes down we can plug somebody else in. It just keeps us going.”

Plymouth hopes to keep things rolling when it hosts Pembroke (1-4) next Saturday, before a showdown at Souhegan (5-0) on Oct. 18.

“We’re feeling pretty good, this is the type of season we want and we’re just going to keep chugging and chugging,” Crane said. “I’m really proud of our team.”