NORTHFIELD — Pioneer Valley Regional School made no secret what it was going to do.
The Panthers kept giving the ball to Bryce Dobosz and dared Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School to stop him.
Dobosz shredded the Pathfinder defense with 201 yards rushing and scored five touchdowns Saturday afternoon to power Pioneer to a 36-0 Tri-County League football victory.
The win ended a two-game losing streak for the Panthers (3-2) and got them thinking about making the postseason.
“We’ll concentrate on Smith Voke next week and take it from there,” first-year coach Paul Worth said. “We are still a work in progress, but we like to think we’re on the right track.”
The game got the Panthers feeling good about themselves. The losses to Ware and Palmer were close and could have gone either way, and both came against likely playoff-bound teams.
Somewhat overshadowed by Dobosz was Pioneer’s defense, which may have played its best game this season. Pathfinder was held to 57 yards of total offense.
Like Pioneer, Pathfinder made a habit of feeding its top running back. But Andrew Roman had trouble running through holes that were quickly plugged by the Panther defense and could manage only 40 yards rushing on 15 carries.
Ball-control was the key to the game. Pioneer had the ball for the majority of the opening quarter The Panthers set the tone for the game with a lengthy, 11-play, 60-yard drive, capped by a 3-yard run by Dobosz.
“I like the workload,” Dobosz said. “I just try to hit the hole hard and the line did such a great job. I always had two blockers ahead of me.”
Dobosz keyed the drive. He ran the ball during 10 of the Panthers’ 11 plays before he bulled over from the 3-yard line to help Pioneer take the early lead, 7-0m, with 2:29 left in the first quarter.
Pioneer’s defense did bend at one point when Pathfinder mounted an 11-play drive. But an incomplete pass stalled the drive at the Panther 38 and the Pioneers did little offensively after that.
Pioneer built a 21-0 halftime lead. Again, the Panthers did so by keeping the ball on the ground and feeding Dobosz.
Dobosz scored on a 15-yard run at 9:25 of the second quarter. Following a poor punt, the drive only covered 35 yards in five plays.
Pioneer finished the first half with a 8-play, 59-yard drive. Dobosz finished that march with a 7-yard run with 43 seconds remaining.
It was Dobosz again in the third quarter. His 1-yard run at 7:10 provided Pioneer with a 28-0 advantage.
“He’s a very good player,” Pioneer quarterback Alex Tyson said. “He means a lot to our team.”
Dobosz wasn’t finished. His 6-yard run followed by Tyson’s conversion run raised the lead to 36-0.
“He’s a great athlete,” Worth said. “If our line didn’t do such a great job of blocking, Bryce wouldn’t have had the game he had.”