Bishop Guertin running back Charlie Bellavance is wrapped up by Salem's Mason Dudley (58) during the Blue Devils' 61-31 thumping of the Cards Saturday night in the Division I quarterfinals at Stellos Stadium. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

NASHUA – Bishop Guertin High School football coach John Trisciani was right.

His team’s Division I quarterfinal Saturday night at Stellos Stadium against the Salem Blue Devils was not going to be anything, as he said, like the Cards’ 17-14 stunning win two months ago.

But there’s no way Trisciani expected a 61-31 defeat at the hands of the Blue Devils, a game that really wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.

He may have thought Salem’s Aidan McDonald would be a tough foe, but not to the tune of an incredible 333 yards and six touchdowns in 16 carries rushing in a playoff performance for the ages. In fact, Salem’s nine rushing touchdowns were a school record.

“I think from a coaching standpoint I needed to do a better job,” Trisciani said. “It’s a learning experience for everybody, it’s playoff football, and clearly they’ve gotten a lot better.

“There was no doubt, I don’t think, at any point in the game that they were the better football team. … That was a disaster.”

The Cards season is over; they take a West Conference title and a 7-3 record into the off-season, but they’d rather be where the Blue Devils will be next weekend, which is at Londonderry in the Division I semifinals.

After they lost to the Cards and Pinkerton in back-to-back games to fall to 1-2, and had a game with Alvirne cancelled, the Devils have stormed out to six straight wins, including one over the Lancers.

“We’re good man,” a fired up Salem coach Steve Abraham said. “The sky was falling when we were 1-2. Pinkerton’s a good team, BG is a good team, OK? We had to believe in ourselves and just had to get better. … Our goal coming into the year was to play the week before Thanksgiving. And I think we have another gear left in us.”

Guertin actually started out the way it wanted, taking the opening kickoff and marching 75 yards in 11 plays with Matt Santosuosso scoring from 21 yards out with 5:56 left in the quarter. The drive chewed up half the quarter, keeping the ball out of McDonald’s and the rest of the Speed Demons’ hands, and the QB even scored on a two-point conversion after a Salem encroachment penalty.

But on McDonald’s third carry of the game, he raced 44 yards for the score, helping just like that to make it 8-7.

And he would add touchdown runs of 2, 50, 19, 7, and, oh yeah, his last one of 99 yards.

“There was some stuff out there where I was saying, ‘Wow, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like this before,'” Trisciani said. “He’s fast, and he’s physical. … He’s just an unbelievable football player.”

McDonald was shocked when he was told his yardage, etc.

“Oh wow,” he said. “I didn’t even know. When you’re in the moment, you lose track of what was going on. You keep fighting with your team, that’s all. … This is what we needed. In Week 2, our heads weren’t in it.”

Salem put up 34 points in the second quarter, said to be the third most in any quarter in program history. McDonald wasn’t the only Speed Demon doing his thing; Tommy Ahlers blasted off for a 64-yard TD run in that quarter to make it a 20-8 game.

The score that hurt the most had to be a McDonald 19-yard run with 12.7 seconds left in the half. That’s because Santosuosso, who had 103 yards rushing, had scored on a 4-yard run with 54.6 seconds left in the half to cut the Salem lead to 34-16. But at the half, it was 41-16, and any doubt about the eventual outcome was completely erased.

The Cards recovered an on-side kick to start the second half, and also a Salem fumble, but couldn’t convert either into points. They did get scores on an Adam Gnanou 89-yard kick return and a 14-yard Santosuosso run. But those mattered little. Trisciani now looks at the big picture, a seven-win campaign and home playoff game, etc.

“You try to tell them that one game doesn’t define a team, doesn’t define a season,” he said. “We try to tell them that effort is what defines us.”

But Trisciani is no rookie coach, and he saw after McDonald’s first score what his team was in for.

“The first (Salem) drive, we had a couple of guys who were driven down the field and on their back,” he said. “You could tell it was probably going to be a long game.”