Bishop Gueritn's Rocco Geraci, left, and Matt Avery (62) make a sandwich out of Goffstown's Will Patenaude during the Cards' 68-7 win Saturday in Goffstown. (Telegraph photo by TOM KING)

GOFFSTOWN – Sometimes in high school sports, you have to expect the unexpected.

And with that, the sometime huge disparity between two teams as well that can produce ugly results.

Bishop Guertin football coach John Trisciani probably figured his team had a very good chance to beat the Goffstown Grizzlies on Saturday afternoon, but by a 68-7 margin?

“No, not expected,” Trisciani said. “There’s an aspect of it where you want to get off to a fast start, no matter who you’re playing and try to put the game away as quickly as you can – especially after what happened to us last week when we didn’t put it away at the half (at Timberlane, a 23-20 win after a 23-7 halftime lead).So in those regards, I think the kids did a good job.

“But when you get into a situation like this, there’s also a sportsmanship piece to it. We’re trying to make the subs (substitutions) the best we can.”

Add to that the fact Triciani said he had only had two busses to take players to the game, which left most of the freshmen home. He used five players taking snaps from center, and all the BG starters were out of the game by midway through the second quarter, and his team was still up by a whopping 61-7 margin at the half.

“In hindsight if we could’ve, it would’ve been good to get some freshmen in there,” he said. “Not a great feeling.”

The Cards are now 3-0, and they’re not the only ones who have bludgeoned the 0-3 Grizzlies, who just two years ago were in the Division I title game (losing to Nashua North). It’s been a steady score regression, as Keene won the season opener 40-19 and last week Pinkerton won 59-6.

But the Grizzlies certainly came out on a sun-splashed late summer day ready to compete, as Gavin Philbrook returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for touchdown. Thus it was actually 7-0 Goffstown early on.

But by the end of the first quarter, it was a 32-7 game. On the day, Cards QB Matt Santosuosso was basically unstoppable rushing the football, with touchdown runs of 3, 41, 70 and 12. On the day – which ended with 9:52 left in the first half – he finished with 145 yards on six carries as BG totaled 398 rushing yards in the first half while Goffstown managed just 33 total yards. Santosuosso threw two passes, one to Connor Guibord for 36 yards that set up an Ethan Chmielecki 3-yard TD run with 38 seconds left n, and another that was picked off by Goffstown’s Jayden Pares when the score was only 16-7 in the first quarter.

Michael MacDonough had a 4-yard scoring run, and other TDs were by Ethan Labbe (5 yards), Johnny Canaway (72 yards) and in the running time second half, Sam Ronzio (24 yards).

The only thing that may have raised some eyebrows was the fact the Cards were going for 2-point conversions from the start, but Trisciani said afterward he didn’t want to lose multiple footballs in the deep woods behind either end zone. (teams bring their own footballs).

As it was, Guertin’s Connor Lennon began kicking once things got way out of hand in the latter third of the second quarter.

“I don’t think I’ve been on the winning side of one of these before,” Trisciani said. “You want to make sure you get out of there with no injuries and what not.”

As it was, heralded BG back Charlie Bellavance played early in the game, but sat through the rest of it nursing an ankle he turned in the season opener and a sore hamstring.

Either way, not a great situation for either team.

“I certainly feel for the othe side and what they’re going through,” Trisciani said. “Best luck to them moving forward.”

It can’t get any worse, right?

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