A year after an 0-4 start, Benji Baptiste and 7-1 Old Rochester host Bay Path's Wing-T in the Division 6 playoffs

MATTAPOISETT Benji Baptiste carried 33 times at Dartmouth on Sept. 24, and the 5-yard touchdown that capped the final drive came with 23 seconds left. The extra point won it, 13-12, the Boston Globe reported. That Thursday night was the closest game of a 7-1 season, and on Friday, Nov. 6, the Old Rochester junior and the Bulldogs open the MIAA's Division 6 tournament at home as the No. 7 seed, hosting No. 10 Bay Path RVT at 7 p.m. at David S. Hagan Stadium in Mattapoisett.

A year ago this team started 0-4. This fall it has won four straight by a combined 151-45 and is 3-0 in league play, first in the standings MaxPreps lists. Baptiste, who holds the school record in the 55 meters, the Globe reported, has run for 1,096 yards in the five games with published totals and has scored 21 touchdowns, by our count from Globe and Standard-Times figures. In its playoff preview, the Globe told Division 6 to look out for No. 7 Old Rochester, "with speedy tailback Benji Baptiste pacing a run-heavy offense."

"We're proud of what this group has accomplished in getting to 7-1 and earning a home playoff game," head coach Bryce Guilbeault said in an email to South Coast 360 on Tuesday. "Our players have worked hard for this opportunity, and we're excited to be playing in front of our home crowd Friday night."

Friday brings together two teams that win on the ground. Guilbeault describes Bay Path as a smash-mouth Wing-T team with a physical fullback and two quick backs, and the statistics Bay Path has entered on MaxPreps show 2,328 rushing yards and 501 passing yards in eight games. Old Rochester gets there with junior quarterback Connor Nelson under center and two backs behind him, by what we saw on the broadcast of its last game.

How Old Rochester moves the ball

We watched the 42-7 win at Somerset Berkley on Oct. 30 on the JJ Silvia Broadcasting stream. Nelson took the snaps under center, often with two backs in the backfield and a receiver split wide to each side. The calls came back to the same handful of plays: a give up the middle to Baptiste or senior fullback Matt Tobin, a pitch to Baptiste toward the sideline, a double handoff that sprang Tobin to the outside, and a Nelson fake followed by a keeper up the middle.

Three Bulldogs have run for 99 yards or more in a game this fall: Baptiste in every game with a published total, Nelson with 131 against Bishop Fenwick and 99 against Bishop Stang, and Tobin with 150 at Somerset Berkley, by Globe and Standard-Times figures. Nelson's biggest throw at Somerset Berkley went for a touchdown, a 28-yard pass to his tight end up the seam on third and 17.

Somerset Berkley ran a triple option and Wing-T look that night, the broadcast crew said, which makes it the closest thing on Old Rochester's schedule to what Bay Path brings. The Raiders' only score came on a 90-yard drive. On their first series of the second half they reached the Old Rochester 44, and the Bulldogs stopped the runs that followed for little or no gain and forced a punt.

The season, game by game

Sept. 11, Plymouth North, won 27-13. The team that opened 2025 with a loss to Plymouth North opened 2026 by beating it at Hagan Stadium, the first of three straight wins to start the season.

Sept. 18, Bishop Stang, won 42-14. Baptiste's breakout: 17 carries, 184 yards and four touchdowns, on runs of 6, 7, 40 and 10 yards, the Globe and the Standard-Times reported. Nelson ran eight times for 99 yards and a touchdown and completed a 20-yard pass, and Logan Hiles had two sacks, the Standard-Times reported. Stang had beaten Old Rochester 19-17 a year earlier.

Sept. 24, at Dartmouth, won 13-12. The closest game of the season came on a Thursday night. Baptiste carried 33 times for 204 yards, broke a 48-yard touchdown run on a halfback dive, then capped the final drive with a 5-yard touchdown with 23 seconds left, and the extra point won it, the Globe reported. "We're resilient. We're tough," Guilbeault said. Baptiste gave the credit away: "That wasn't just me. That's our team and that was the line blocking too."

Oct. 2, Foxborough, lost 35-14. Old Rochester led 14-0 early in the second quarter before Foxborough came back, the Globe reported. Foxborough, a perennial contender in the Globe's words, is now a Division 5 playoff team and opens against unbeaten Apponequet on Thursday, Nov. 5, by the MIAA's bracket. It is the only loss on the schedule.

Oct. 9, Dighton-Rehoboth, won 20-14. A week after Foxborough, the Bulldogs answered with a six-point home win that started the four-game streak still running. With the later wins over Greater New Bedford and Somerset Berkley, Old Rochester is 3-0 in league play, first in the standings MaxPreps lists.

Oct. 16, Bishop Fenwick, won 53-18. Baptiste ran for 273 yards and five touchdowns, on runs of 54, 22, 4, 34 and 2 yards, the Standard-Times reported. Nelson ran for 131 yards and a score, and Hiles scored twice, on a 4-yard run and a 44-yard interception return. Fenwick is now the No. 15 seed in Division 6 and could meet Old Rochester again in the Round of 8 if both win this week. The Globe named Baptiste a Player of the Week for the Fenwick game.

Oct. 23, at Greater New Bedford, won 36-6. Baptiste ran 16 times for 178 yards with touchdowns of 11 and 91 yards, fullback Matt Tobin scored twice and Jermaine Boardman added a 25-yard touchdown run, the Standard-Times reported. It was the third straight win.

Oct. 30, at Somerset Berkley, won 42-7. Baptiste took the opening kickoff to the Somerset Berkley 9 and scored from 6 yards out two plays later, then went straight up the middle and cut back to the outside for a 37-yard touchdown. Nelson's 28-yard touchdown pass made it 21-0 after one quarter. When the Raiders answered with their 90-yard drive, Old Rochester scored again in three plays, Baptiste shedding a tackle in the open field for his third touchdown and a 28-7 halftime lead. Tobin scored twice in the third quarter, once untouched and once from 27 yards after an 18-yard Baptiste punt return. Old Rochester made all six extra points, and its last drive ran from late in the third quarter to the final whistle, with nearly 10 running backs getting a touch by the broadcast crew's count. The Globe credited Baptiste with 257 yards and three touchdowns and named him a Player of the Week.

For the season Old Rochester scored 247 points and allowed 119, and it held six of its eight opponents to 14 points or fewer, by the scores on its schedule. Four of its wins came by 20 points or more. It beat all three teams on this year's schedule that beat it to open 2025, and it has unbeaten Apponequet coming to Hagan Stadium on Thanksgiving.

From 0-4 to an instant classic

A year ago Old Rochester opened 0-4, with losses to Plymouth North, Bishop Stang, Fairhaven and Dartmouth, by the MaxPreps schedule. "We had a tough schedule to start the year. We had a lot of young guys playing and that takes time to get everybody on the same page," Guilbeault told the Sippican Week that October. The Bulldogs then won three of their next four, the three wins all over South Coast Conference Blue teams, and as the 13th seed beat No. 4 Wilmington 47-39 in three overtimes in the first round of the playoffs, a game the Globe called an instant classic. Baptiste, then a sophomore, scored on a 29-yard run and the clinching two-point conversion, and quarterback Connor Nelson ran in keepers in the second and third overtimes. "We started the season 0-4 and they wrote us off. I'm happy for them that they got it done tonight," Guilbeault told the Globe. Hudson ended that run a week later, 34-13, and the Bulldogs closed the year with a 47-8 Thanksgiving win at Apponequet that finished a 4-0 run through the Blue, by the MaxPreps standings.

The stars

Benji Baptiste, junior running back. Through six games he had 16 touchdowns and 96 points, second in SouthCoast scoring, the Standard-Times reported, and he has scored five more since. In the five games with published totals he averaged more than 219 yards. He returns kicks and punts too. He has been scoring against South Coast Conference teams since he was a freshman, when he caught a touchdown pass in a 49-35 win at Somerset Berkley, the Wanderer reported in 2024.

Connor Nelson, junior quarterback. The Sippican Week called him the starting quarterback as a sophomore in 2025, and Nelson runs the offense with his feet as much as his arm: 131 rushing yards against Fenwick and 99 against Stang, by the Standard-Times count, the keepers in the second and third overtimes at Wilmington last fall, and the 28-yard touchdown throw at Somerset Berkley.

Matt Tobin, senior fullback. The broadcast called him a captain, and he played like one at Somerset Berkley with 150 rushing yards and two touchdowns, the Standard-Times reported, after two more touchdowns at Greater New Bedford. On the Somerset Berkley broadcast he also broke a run of more than 40 yards in the first quarter.

Players to watch on both sides of the ball

Logan Hiles, defense. Hiles had two sacks against Stang and scored on a pick-six and a short run against Fenwick, the Standard-Times reported. He plays on a defense that allowed 45 points in the last four games and held each of its last two opponents to a single touchdown.

Owen Pelland, defense. A captain, Pelland won the Standard-Times readers' poll for SouthCoast preseason defensive player of the year with 60% of the vote.

Jermaine Boardman, offense. Boardman scored on a 25-yard run at Greater New Bedford, by the Standard-Times account, making him the third Bulldog with a rushing touchdown that night, after Baptiste and Tobin.

Hunter Horsey, senior captain. Horsey spoke for the team when the Standard-Times wrote about the return of assistant coach Paul Guilbeault in September. "There's a lot of culture at this school," he said.

The line and the kicker. Baptiste credited his line after the Dartmouth win. The Bulldogs' kicker made 15 extra points over the last three games, four at Greater New Bedford, five against Fenwick and six of six at Somerset Berkley, by the Standard-Times count, and the one that beat Dartmouth with 23 seconds left, the Globe reported.

When the captains met at midfield for the coin toss at Somerset Berkley, the broadcast named five for Old Rochester: Tobin, Horsey, Nelson, Baptiste and Pelland.

What Bay Path brings

Bay Path, the regional vocational school in Charlton, is 4-4 and 3-1 in the Central Mass B league, according to MaxPreps. It started 0-2 with road losses at Norton, 25-12, and Randolph, 20-6, beat Clinton 41-7 and Northbridge 21-20, lost at Blackstone Valley 34-27 and to Northeast Metro 20-13, and comes in on a two-game winning streak after beating Millbury 35-7 and winning 41-21 at Uxbridge, its first road win of the season, by the schedule Bay Path posts on Arbiter Live. That adds up to 196 points scored and 154 allowed, by our count.

"Bay Path is a tough, rugged football team that plays physical, smash mouth football out of the Wing-T," Guilbeault said. "They're big and stout on both the offensive and defensive lines. They have a physical fullback and two quick backs who can break a big play at any time. Defensively, they're very aggressive and bring a lot of pressure to try to overwhelm opposing offenses."

By the statistics the team has entered on MaxPreps, the Minutemen have run 246 times for 2,328 yards, 9.5 yards a carry, and senior quarterback Max Lapriore has completed 23 of 42 passes for 501 yards with five touchdowns and two interceptions. Three backs carry the load. Senior fullback and middle linebacker Dominik Ignatovich has 976 yards on 94 carries, senior Boden Barrell has 759 yards on 60 carries, 12.7 a carry, and sophomore Jahzian Torres has 433 yards on 57 carries. Ignatovich is also the leading receiver, with 14 catches for 324 yards, and sophomore Jayden Warren has 213 yards on eight catches.

Ignatovich ran 13 times for 217 yards and two touchdowns at Uxbridge, his sixth straight game with a rushing touchdown, and he has averaged 174 rushing yards over his last three games, by the MaxPreps preview built from the team's figures. Barrell added 63 yards and a touchdown that night. On defense, senior Hunter Defosse has 18 tackles and senior lineman Eziajah Santiago has four sacks in the three games entered for them, and four different Minutemen have an interception, by the same figures.

Cody Giampa is Bay Path's head coach, and MaxPreps lists him in that job in each of the six seasons before this one, starting with 2020-21, with a 40-25 record over those seasons by our count. His teams won the Vocational Large state title three years in a row, beating Monty Tech 28-20 in 2022, Blackstone Valley 42-41 in 2023 and Whittier 38-0 in 2024, by the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association's list of champions. The 2024 team went 12-1, its loss coming 28-14 at Swampscott in the first round of the Division 6 tournament, The Daily Item reported. Bay Path finished 5-6 last fall, by MaxPreps, the same record as Old Rochester.

"For us, it comes down to playing a clean game in all three phases: offense, defense and special teams," Guilbeault said. "We have to avoid self-inflicted mistakes, especially penalties and turnovers. If rain becomes a factor, ball security and execution will be even more important. The team that minimizes mistakes and takes advantage of its opportunities will give itself the best chance to advance."

Tale of the tape

Old Rochester and Bay Path, side by side (records and published statistics through Oct. 30)

	Old Rochester	Bay Path
Seed and record	No. 7, 7-1	No. 10, 4-4
League	3-0, first	3-1, Central Mass B
Home and road	4-1 at home, 3-0 on the road	3-1 at home, 1-3 on the road
Points scored and allowed	247 and 119	196 and 154
Points per game	30.9 scored, 14.9 allowed	24.5 scored, 19.3 allowed
Coming in	Four straight wins, 151-45	Two straight wins, 76-28
Offense	Under center, two backs, run-heavy	Wing-T, 2,328 rushing yards and 501 passing
Leading rusher	Benji Baptiste, 1,096 yards in five games with published totals	Dominik Ignatovich, 976 yards on 94 carries
Quarterback	Connor Nelson, junior	Max Lapriore, senior, 23 of 42, 501 yards
Head coach	Bryce Guilbeault, eighth season	Cody Giampa, 40-25 in six seasons before this one
Last year	5-6, won a playoff game in three overtimes	5-6
Common opponents this season	None	None

Old Rochester's figures come from its posted schedule and from Globe and Standard-Times game reports. Bay Path's come from its posted schedule and the statistics it entered on MaxPreps. The per-game points, the streak totals and Giampa's record are our math.

Our read on the matchup

This is our analysis, from the records above and the game we watched. Bay Path's three backs average 7.6 to 12.7 yards a carry by the team's own figures, which puts the weight on Old Rochester's tackling in space, the part of its defense that stopped Somerset Berkley's option runs for little or no gain in the second half. Going the other way, a defense Guilbeault calls aggressive will be trying to get into the backfield against an offense built on handoffs, pitches and fakes, which is why his warning about ball security and turnovers matters. On points, Old Rochester has scored 6.4 more a game than Bay Path and allowed 4.4 fewer.

Two Guilbeaults on the sideline

Guilbeault, who played at Bishop Stang and captained his team at Framingham State, became head coach in 2019 after three years as an assistant, the Sippican Week reported. This is his eighth season running the Bulldogs and his 16th year coaching football, the Standard-Times reported in October, when it wrote about the restaurant he is opening in Mattapoisett this fall. "We talk about it all the time in football, about representing our community," he told the paper. "When you get an opportunity to do something where you live, that's important." Some of the lessons he teaches his players carry over to the restaurant, he told the paper: "I'm a huge teamwork guy."

His father, Paul Guilbeault, is back beside him. The elder Guilbeault, a Bishop Stang graduate who coached at Stang, Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech and Old Colony and has been an Old Rochester assistant since his son took over in 2019, is in his 47th season on a high school sideline, the Standard-Times reported. He came back this fall after a heart transplant on Nov. 19, 2025. From the hospital he video chatted with the team and watched the games on livestreams, and after each game the score went up on the whiteboard in his room, the paper reported. "I told the doctors I will be coaching next year," he said.

"He's really happy he has the opportunity to coach again," Bryce Guilbeault told the Standard-Times. "The kids are happy to have him back." The players said the same thing. "We all missed the 'Yeah baby,'" Tobin said of one of the elder Guilbeault's favorite sayings, and Baptiste called him "a good hype man on the sideline." Horsey put it this way: "He's our drive. We work for him."

The program's playoff history

Old Rochester has won at least one state tournament game in each of the last five MIAA tournaments it played, by our count from Globe, Wanderer and Sippican Week reports. In 2021 it opened the Division 5 tournament with a 26-6 win over Northeast Metro Voc-Tech, the Wanderer reported. In 2022 the No. 5 Bulldogs beat South Coast rival Fairhaven 49-17 in the first round, the Globe reported. In 2023 they fell behind North Middlesex 14-0 four minutes in, then forced five turnovers and won 28-14, the Wanderer reported. In 2024 they beat Norton 42-10 in the quarterfinals and reached the Division 5 semifinals, and last fall came the three-overtime night at Wilmington.

Shawsheen ended Old Rochester's playoff run in the 2022 and 2023 quarterfinals and the 2024 semifinal, the Sippican Week reported. After the 2023 loss Guilbeault said, "We are proud of the boys. They played hard and left everything on the field," the Wanderer reported, and after that year's Thanksgiving game he looked ahead: "We are looking forward to a great offseason and getting back to our winning ways in 2024. Roll Dogs!"

The deepest run came in 2018. Under coach Justin Kogler, Old Rochester won the South Coast Conference Large title and beat Ashland 28-6 in the Division 6 South final, and it went into the Division 6 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium undefeated, the Wanderer and the Sippican Week reported. Stoneham won that final 26-20, according to Fun 107. The Bulldogs had lost the South final to Middleboro, 30-21, the year before, and in 2019, Guilbeault's first season, they reached a third straight South final by beating Norwell 22-15, the Wanderer reported.

Friday night: time, tickets, bracket

Kickoff is 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6, at David S. Hagan Stadium at Old Rochester Regional High School, 135 Marion Road, Mattapoisett, by the MIAA bracket and the schedule the school posts. The MIAA sells tickets for every game from the Round of 16 on only online, through GoFan, it says on its ticketing page. A Round of 16 football ticket costs $9.40, general admission, with fees included, by the MIAA's tournament price list.

Buy tickets on the GoFan page for Bay Path at Old Rochester, the event Old Rochester's MaxPreps schedule links, or start from the MIAA's tournament ticketing page.

A win sends Old Rochester to the Round of 8 against No. 2 Hudson or No. 15 Bishop Fenwick, who meet Thursday, Nov. 5, at 6:30 p.m., according to the MIAA's Division 6 bracket. Round of 8 tickets cost $11.50, by the MIAA's price list. Hudson, 8-0, ended Old Rochester's run last fall, and its senior quarterback, Logan Dome, has 1,289 passing yards, 556 rushing yards and 29 total touchdowns, the Globe reported. The Bulldogs beat Fenwick by 35 points in October. The Globe picked top seed Norwell as the slight favorite in Division 6. Fairhaven and Case play on the same side of the bracket, so a South Coast state semifinal is possible.

Two more home games

When the elder Guilbeault was in the hospital, he said, the support from the school and the community was "almost overwhelming," the Standard-Times reported. This fall's seniors have at least two more home games at Hagan Stadium: Friday night, and Thanksgiving morning against an Apponequet team that went 8-0, by the schedule Apponequet posts.

After last year's Thanksgiving win Guilbeault described what he wants each class to leave behind. "[The seniors] have left the program better than when they found it as freshmen and that's always a goal in life, for things to be better than how you get them," he told the Sippican Week. Tobin and Horsey are among this fall's seniors, by the Standard-Times account.

Friday's final will be on the Friday Night Scoreboard, every South Coast playoff game is in our bracket story, and our game story has the 42-7 win at Somerset Berkley.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.