Charlie Urda takes off against Plymouth's Brock Tanner for one of his four TDs during the Spartans' 35-21 win in the Division I quarterfinals in Milford on Saturday. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

MILFORD – When facing the Milford High School football team, you always have to focus on trying to stop running backs Caden Zalenksi and Logan Barnhill.

Just don’t sleep on quarterback Chuck Urda.

Urda rushed for 109 yards on eight carries and four of the No. 3 Spartans’ five touchdowns in a 35-21 Divison II quarterfinal win over No. 6 Plymouth, and now Milford (7-2) moves on to travel to face second ranked and unbeaten Lebanon in the semifinals next weekend.

“Just awesome,” Milford coach Keith Jones said. “He put us on his back at times and took over the game. They did a helluva job taking away Caden and Logan, and we knew Charlie would have to have a big game.”

It was a 21-21 battle with 6:24 left after the Bobcats’ Anthony Ciotti ran it in from 5 yards out, the drive set up by a Milford fumble at its own 27. Nothing Jones didn’t expect.

“You playing Plymouth, New Hampshire, they’ve been in the playoffs a lot more times than I think I’ve been alive,” Jones said. “We practiced all week like we’re playing the best in the country, they gave us fits. We did our best to slow them down and we did our best to outscore them.”

And they were able to do that as momentum shifted Milford’s way and they got two Urda TDs just 1:10 apart to win the game. One of the plays that shouldn’t go unnoticed was a 35-yard kickoff return by Milford’s Trice Cote out to midfield, just after the Bobcats had tied things at 21. A rollout Urda pass to Cade Cloutier, with a late hit penalty tacked on, helped set up Urda’s third touchdown run. Actually, he scored it twice, a 17-yard run called back due to a hold and then he ran it in the next play from 18 yards out.

But the return was key.

“It was great field position,” Jones said. “Cote did a great job on that, just kind of weaved his way through there, got us a good spot. Charlie was running well, so why not get some blockers in front of him.”

Zalenski then recovered a Plymouth fumble at the 19 and that set up Urda’s final run of the day, a 24-yarder with 3:24 to go for the clincher, 35-21.

“It was the blocking, I think,” Urda said. “We had everybody there, and they all got it.”

“We make a few mistakes on those key plays and that’s what kind of gets you,” Plymouth coach Chris Sanborn said, his team done at 6-4. “We got them on the ropes a little bit, I thought, but that’s a great coaching staff over there, talented players, they stuck with it. They didn’t panic. A lot of teams would panic when we’d stung them a little bit, but they didn’t.”

The Spartans led 14-7 at the half but it looked like when Zalenski scored on a 61-yard run on Milford’s first play from scrimmage that it wouldn’t be nip-and-tuck. Plymouth tied it on a Ciotti 4-yard run early in the second quarter, but Urda responded with his first score, a 15-yard TD, with 7:13 left in the half to help make it 14-7. He then preserved the lead with an interception of a Kurtis Cross fourth down pass deep in Milford territory in the half’s final minute.

In the third quarter, Ciotti recovered a blocked punt in the end zone and the PAT kick tied things at 14, but there was Urda with a 20-yard TD run with 5:32 left in the third after the Spartans recovered an on-side kick.

And that was just the trend.