Today, Oct. 25, the varsity football team closes Week 7 of their season in a game against Bedford and is getting ready for playoffs. Last season, Wayland beat Bedford with a final score of 28-14. The upcoming game is going to be the team’s “biggest test,” next to Shawsheen Tech (ST) according to head coach Scott Parseghian. This game is for the Dual County League (DCL) Championship, a title the team is going to fight for.
Bedford has won their past two games in complete shut outs with the final score against Newton South being 56-0 and the final score against Acton-Boxbourough being 54-0. Despite these high scoring games, Wayland still has a better record of 5-1 compared to Bedford’s record of 4-2.
Both schools faced ST, an undefeated force that’s currently ranked No. 8 in the state. However, when Bedford faced ST, they lost by less points than Wayland did with a final score of 20-35 compared to Wayland’s final score of 0-28. This has raised the question if there are nerves amongst the Wayland players going into Friday night’s game.
“I think we’ve got this,” Parseghian said. “Bedford and us, it’s a great ride. It’s going to be a statement game for either team.”
While Parseghian appreciates the talent coming from Bedford, he has confidence Wayland will succeed. When thinking about this upcoming game, he reflected on last year’s game against Bedford and how senior captain Max Dresens rushed for over 200 yards and senior captain Michael Keenan rushed for over 100 yards.
“We went into our game with Shawsheen [Tech] too jacked up,” Parseghian said. “We’re taking a business-like approach to Bedford, cool, calm and collected.”
Senior Jaden Kaufman has been in the WHS football program for all four years of his high school career, and played varsity for three of them. He’s gone head to head with Bedford in previous years and continues to have confidence in the upcoming game while understanding the challenges they have to face.
“It’s one of our biggest challenges this year, so I’m excited to see what we can do,” Kaufman said.
Parseghian has confidence in his team’s offense and defense and believes that Wayland has what it takes to secure a victory against Bedford.
“As the patriots always say, we’re going to know our job, and we’re going to do our job,” Parseghian said.