Bedord's Brycen D'Urso hops over Nashua South deender Joe Kudia (15) while breaking away rom Panthers Logan Rice (54) and Ted Smiley (55) during Friday's season opener for both at Bulldog Stadium. (Photo by Dan Attorri)

BEDFORD — It’s tough to open against the defending champions, but head coach Josh Porter isn’t making any excuses.

The Nashua High School South Purple Panthers football season opener went about as poorly as it could. Bedford’s defense forced six turnovers, including five interceptions, and had four sacks, and the Bulldogs’ offense made big plays early and often as Bedford rolled to a 48-14 Week 1 victory on Friday night.

South received the kickoff to open the game and on the second play from scrimmage quarterback C.J.Goss’ pass went through the hands of receiver Griffin Carta, off the shoulder of defensive back/quarterback Parker Beauchemin and into the hands of Bedford’s Cole Sufat.

The wheels fell off early and the Panthers never recovered.

Led by senior quarterback Parker Beauchemin (5-for-8, 193 passing yards and four touchdowns), seniors Brycen D’Urso (76 yard TD reception), Camden Santos (60 yards on eight carries, 24-yard TD catch), Winston Huynh (two rushing touchdowns) and junior Gabe Baskin (TD receptions of 59 and 15 yards) Bedford led 34-0 with 33 seconds left in the first half.

Nashua South senior transfer QB (from Salem by way of Dracut, Mass.) Goss tossed a 16-yard scoring pass to senior Justin Fish to put South on the board with less than one second left.

Senior Andrew Castro blocked Bedford’s extra point attempt on the previous drive to delay running time (which starts when a team leads by 35 points) and ran in the 2-point conversion after Fish’s score to make it 34-8 at halftime.

But the Panthers couldn’t sustain that momentum. Beauchemin threw his fourth touchdown pass of the game to Santos in the middle of the third quarter and Bedford linebacker D’Urso picked off Goss for a third time, returning this one 73 yards to set up a 2-yard TD by Drew Burnett to make it 48-8 Bedford with 2:20 left in the third.

Sophomore Luke Graven went under center for Nashua’s final drive, throwing a 6-yard pass to senior Jason Brinley with 3:22 left in the game to wrap up the scoring.

“It was a rough one,” Porter said. “We returned three starters on both sides of the ball. We had a couple who were out tonight, no excuse there. We’re young, we’re green. I think we have a lot of talent. As long as we’re progressing and getting better each week I think we have a pretty high ceiling with this group. It’s a learning experience.”

Both Bedford and South have undergone several changes since they met in last year’s Division I semifinal, a game the Bulldogs won 34-14 on their way to an undefeated season and a championship title. Both teams graduated their starting quarterback, leading rusher, and several other playmakers. Bedford also needed to replace its head coach and hired Tom Babaian – a Pinkerton assistant last year and a longtime Pelham head coach before that – and he instituted a wing T offense, a much different look from Bedford teams in recent years.

But while the Bulldogs immediately excelled in new roles with a new system, the Panthers had a much steeper learning curve.

It was a rough outing for Goss, who threw five interceptions and was strip sacked, while going 6-for-18 with 63 passing yards in his first game in a Purple Panther uniform. It’s easy to blame the quarterback, but Porter was quick to point out that his team needs to improve across the board.

“You look at each of those individually, there was a (different) thing that went wrong on each of them. The first one bounces off a receiver’s hands, the next one we had pressure on our quarterback, the third one they disguised coverage well, so it’s an accumulation of things,” Porter said. “We turned the ball over (six) times tonight. Any time you do that the result is going to be what it is. I think we turned it over tonight more than we did all last season. Hopefully we get it out of our system. It’s going to be a point of emphasis in practice every day.”

Fish (60 receiving yards on four catches, 20 yards on five carries) and fellow senior Eric Baker (86 yards on 12 carries) were bright spots on offense.