Skip to the story | Text edition home | Full site

Reported by us | Fall River

Durfee beats Brockton 21-8 as New Bedford and Old Rochester roll

James Gondre caught two touchdown passes and Ahliy Cantave ran for a third as the Hilltoppers beat the Boxers for what the broadcast called the first time ever, with every South Coast score posted so far from the last Friday before the MIAA cutoff.

By the SC360 Sports Desk | Published Oct. 30, 2026 | Last verified Oct. 31, 2026, 12:02 a.m. ET

FALL RIVER Durfee beat Brockton 21-8 on Friday night, Oct. 30, in Fall River, scoring twice in the fourth quarter on its homecoming and senior night and then holding on through an onside kick in the last seconds. "And Durfee, for the first time ever, has defeated Brockton in football," the play-by-play announcer on FRED-TV Sports' broadcast of the game said as time ran out.

New Bedford pulled away from Dartmouth 52-20, Old Rochester won 42-7 at Somerset Berkley, and Diman, Case and Cape Cod Tech also won, while Bishop Stang lost by three at Cardinal Spellman on the last Friday before the MIAA's football cutoff. Stoughton won 35-6 at Wareham, Franklin beat Taunton 21-12 and West Bridgewater edged Seekonk 22-20. Three more games involving South Coast teams had no posted final late Friday.

South Coast varsity football, Friday, Oct. 30
GameFinal
Brockton at DurfeeDurfee 21, Brockton 8
New Bedford at DartmouthNew Bedford 52, Dartmouth 20
Old Rochester at Somerset BerkleyOld Rochester 42, Somerset Berkley 7
Diman at Bristol-PlymouthDiman 20, Bristol-Plymouth 7
Case at SharonCase 41, Sharon 14
Bishop Stang at Cardinal SpellmanCardinal Spellman 20, Bishop Stang 17
Cape Cod Tech at Atlantis CharterCape Cod Tech 49, Atlantis Charter 0
Stoughton at WarehamStoughton 35, Wareham 6
Franklin at TauntonFranklin 21, Taunton 12
Seekonk at West BridgewaterWest Bridgewater 22, Seekonk 20
Fairhaven at GNB Voc-TechFinal not yet posted
Apponequet at Dighton-RehobothFinal not yet posted
Southeastern at Old ColonyFinal not yet posted

Durfee 21, Brockton 8

Junior James Gondre caught both of quarterback Matthew Sherry's touchdown passes, and sophomore Ahliy Cantave ran for the third score. Cantave came into the night with 905 yards and went past 1,000 on the last scoring drive, the broadcast said. Durfee is 6-2, and Brockton, which went in 11th in Division 1 in Friday morning's MIAA power rankings, is 3-5.

Durfee held the ball for more than nine minutes on its opening drive, going 77 yards from its own 20 to the Brockton 3, but a lateral on third and goal came loose and Brockton recovered. On Durfee's next series, early in the second quarter, Sherry found Gondre wide open for a 47-yard touchdown on second and 7, and the extra point made it 7-0.

The Hilltoppers had two more chances before halftime. A field goal try of more than 30 yards hooked left. Then Durfee recovered a Brockton fumble at the Boxers' 32 with 3:50 left in the half, and two penalties against Brockton moved the ball to the 8. Durfee worked it to the 1, but on fourth and goal with nine seconds left, Brockton's defense held, and it was 7-0 at the break.

Durfee opened the second half with an onside kick and recovered it, though that drive ended in a punt. Late in the third quarter the Hilltoppers reached first and goal at the Brockton 7 and were pushed back to the 11. A face mask penalty on a fourth-down sack gave them another try, though not a first down, since the sack had pushed them so far back, and Brockton stopped the replayed fourth-down pitch to Cantave on the first play of the fourth quarter and took over at its own 7.

Durfee's defense answered with a fourth-down stop by inches near the Brockton 16, with about nine minutes to play, and this time the Hilltoppers cashed in. On third and 12, Sherry scrambled away from pressure and threw to Gondre in the end zone, and the kick made it 14-0 with 7:58 left.

Brockton came up short on fourth down on its next two possessions, the second a fourth-and-9 incompletion followed by an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that gave Durfee the ball with 2:40 to play. Cantave broke away for a touchdown moments later, and the extra point made it 21-0 with about 2:25 left. Senior Carter Morel had a sack on Brockton's next series.

Coach Taylor Brown got the ice bucket in the final half minute, with the Hilltoppers still ahead 21-0. Brockton then scored on a touchdown pass with 14 seconds left, converted the two-point try and recovered an onside kick, and Durfee intercepted a pass on the final play as time expired.

Brown played on a Durfee team that tied Brockton but never beat it, the announcers said during the broadcast, and they recalled Brockton's 23-0 shutout of Durfee at Marciano Stadium last fall. Durfee went in 23rd in Division 1, and the win over the 11th-ranked Boxers came the night before the MIAA's cutoff. Its only losses are 21-7 at Taunton and 28-27 at Framingham. The next game on Durfee's schedule is New Bedford at Fenway Park at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25, and Brockton's is Bridgewater-Raynham at home at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 26. Any playoff games come first for teams that qualify.

New Bedford 52, Dartmouth 20

New Bedford scored the game's last 32 points at Dartmouth Memorial Stadium for its fourth straight win and is 7-1. Dartmouth tied the game twice and led 14-12 in the second quarter before the Whalers went to halftime ahead 28-20, after Lyric Ramos scored his third rushing touchdown on the final play before the break. Quarterback Tru Gonsalves-Cosme then ran 65 yards for a touchdown on the first play of the second half, after going 68 yards on a fake punt in the second quarter, according to the Dartmouth Community Media (DCTV) stream of the game.

Dartmouth's Chase Afonso, playing quarterback, ran for two 7-yard touchdowns and threw a 58-yard scoring pass that tied it 20-20 with 38 seconds left in the half. Neither team kicked an extra point all night; every conversion try was for two. New Bedford went in 13th in Division 1, and Dartmouth is 1-7.

Our full game story: New Bedford beats Dartmouth 52-20.

Old Rochester 42, Somerset Berkley 7

Matt Tobin ran for two third-quarter touchdowns, the first one untouched, as Old Rochester won at Hanson Memorial Stadium for its fourth straight win and is 7-1, the JJ Silvia Broadcasting stream of the game showed. Benji Baptiste set up the second with an 18-yard punt return to the Somerset Berkley 27. Two plays later Tobin went the 27 yards with 3:27 left in the third, and the extra point made it 42-7. Old Rochester's defense forced three straight punts in that stretch, and the Bulldogs ran out the clock with a long final drive. Old Rochester went in seventh in Division 6. Somerset Berkley, playing on its senior night, is 1-6.

Our full game story: Old Rochester beats Somerset Berkley 42-7.

Around the South Coast

Diman 20, Bristol-Plymouth 7. Diman won at Houlker Memorial Stadium, Bristol-Plymouth's home site for the game, and is 5-3, while Bristol-Plymouth fell to 4-4. They went in 22nd and 29th in Division 4.

Case 41, Sharon 14. Case won on the road and is 6-2. It went in 11th in Division 6, and Sharon, 23rd in Division 3, is 5-3.

Cardinal Spellman 20, Bishop Stang 17. Stang lost by three at Potvin Field in Brockton and is 2-6, and Spellman is 3-5.

Cape Cod Tech 49, Atlantis Charter 0. Cape Cod Tech, fourth in Division 8 going in, stayed unbeaten at 7-0 with the win in Fall River, and Atlantis Charter fell to 4-4.

Stoughton 35, Wareham 6. Stoughton, which had lost its first seven games, won for the first time this season at Spillane Field and is 1-7. Wareham, which went in 17th in Division 8, a fraction of a point out of a qualifying spot, fell to 3-5. Stoughton plays at Canton at Fenway Park at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 24, and Wareham's next game is at Bourne at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 26.

Franklin 21, Taunton 12. Franklin, 5-2 and eighth in Division 1 going in, won at Taunton High, according to the final on Taunton's schedule. Taunton, 22nd in Division 1, fell to 3-5. Its three wins include a 21-7 win over Durfee on Sept. 18. Taunton hosts Milford at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25.

West Bridgewater 22, Seekonk 20. West Bridgewater came back from six points down in the fourth quarter to win at home. The scoreboard on the West Bridgewater Community Access Media stream showed Seekonk ahead 20-14 in the fourth quarter at about 7:50 p.m., and later tied 20-20 in the fourth before West Bridgewater went ahead. West Bridgewater, 14th in Division 7 going in, is 4-4. Seekonk, 23rd in Division 7, is 2-5, short of the three wins the MIAA requires for the state tournament. Both play on Thanksgiving morning, Thursday, Nov. 26, at 10 a.m.: West Bridgewater at East Bridgewater and Seekonk at home against Dighton-Rehoboth.

Finals not yet posted

Fairhaven, 7-0 and sixth in Division 6, played at GNB Voc-Tech, and Apponequet, 7-0 and 11th in Division 5, played at Dighton-Rehoboth, both going for 8-0. Neither game had a posted final late Friday, and neither did Southeastern at Old Colony. We will add each final as the schools post it.

What comes next

In each MIAA division, the top 16 teams with at least three wins and seven games played qualify for the state tournament. The football cutoff is Saturday, Oct. 31, and brackets come out at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 1.

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

Notes

The game accounts for Durfee and Brockton, New Bedford and Dartmouth, and Old Rochester and Somerset Berkley come from our own viewing of the FRED-TV Sports, DCTV and JJ Silvia Broadcasting streams, checked play by play against the announcers' calls and the scoreboard. Every other final, every record, rank and next game is from both schools' Arbiter Live schedules (Franklin 21, Taunton 12 from Taunton's schedule, since Franklin's was not found) and the MIAA's Oct. 30 power rankings, read Oct. 30; the Durfee and Brockton final, which both schools posted by 9:39 p.m. and still showed at 11:53 p.m., matches the broadcast's scoreboard and calls. The Seekonk and West Bridgewater fourth-quarter scores are from the scoreboard on that game's stream; the final is from both schools. Durfee names are spelled as its Arbiter roster prints them; New Bedford and Dartmouth names and Benji Baptiste's as The Boston Globe printed them, since no roster is posted for those teams, and Matt Tobin's as The Sippican Week printed it. The first-ever win and the coach's history are the broadcast's. We checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: no comment was sought.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (40)

  1. FRED-TV Sports: "10.30.2026 - Football - Durfee vs. Brockton" (Facebook live broadcast)Watched live for notes from the first quarter to the final play; text notes and scoreboard readings only, nothing recorded. Oct. 30, 2026.
  2. Dartmouth Community Media (DCTV): "Dartmouth High Football vs New Bedford - October 30, 2026" (YouTube live stream)Watched live for notes from kickoff to the final; text notes and scoreboard readings only, nothing recorded. Oct. 30, 2026.
  3. JJ Silvia Broadcasting: Somerset-Berkley Raiders vs Old Rochester Bulldogs (YouTube live stream)Watched live for notes from the third quarter to the final; text notes only, nothing recorded. Oct. 30, 2026.
  4. West Bridgewater Community Access Media: West Bridgewater vs. Seekonk football stream (YouTube)Scoreboard read live in the fourth quarter, 7:47 to 7:53 p.m. (Seekonk 20, West Bridgewater 14), and on the archived stream after the game (20-20 in the fourth, two readings); notes only, nothing recorded. Oct. 30, 2026.
  5. Durfee boys varsity football schedule and rosterArbiter Live. Roster spellings (Sherry, Gondre, Cantave, Morel), head coach Taylor Brown, season results, Nov. 25 at New Bedford, Fenway Park listed as the site. Oct. 30 row: W, 21-8 vs. Brockton (no final at 9:29 p.m.; posted by 9:39 p.m.). Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  6. Brockton boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Season results; Nov. 26 vs. Bridgewater-Raynham, 10 a.m. Oct. 30 row: L, 8-21 at Durfee (posted by 9:39 p.m.). Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  7. New Bedford boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 52-20 at Dartmouth; Nov. 25 vs. Durfee, Fenway Park. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:29 p.m.
  8. Dartmouth boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 20-52 vs. New Bedford; Nov. 26 at Fairhaven, 10 a.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:29 p.m.
  9. Old Rochester boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 42-7 at Somerset Berkley. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 8:30 p.m.
  10. Somerset Berkley boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 7-42 vs. Old Rochester. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 8:30 p.m.
  11. Diman boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 20-7 at Bristol-Plymouth. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:18 p.m.
  12. Bristol-Plymouth boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 7-20 vs. Diman. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:18 p.m.
  13. Case boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 41-14 at Sharon. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:45 p.m.
  14. Sharon boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 14-41 vs. Joseph Case. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:46 p.m.
  15. Bishop Stang boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 17-20 at Cardinal Spellman. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 8:40 p.m.
  16. Cardinal Spellman boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 20-17 vs. Bishop Stang. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:00 p.m.
  17. Cape Cod Tech boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 49-0 at Atlantis Charter. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 9:00 p.m.
  18. Atlantis Charter varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: L, 0-49 vs. Cape Cod Tech. Read Oct. 30, 2026, 8:58 p.m.
  19. Fairhaven boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  20. GNB Voc-Tech boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  21. Apponequet boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  22. Dighton-Rehoboth boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  23. Taunton boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Season results (3-4 going in, including W 21-7 vs. Durfee Sept. 18); Oct. 30 row: L, 12-21 vs. Franklin (no final at 9:45 p.m.; posted by 11:53 p.m.); Nov. 25 vs. Milford, 6 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  24. Wareham boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Season results (3-4 going in); Oct. 30 row: L, 6-35 vs. Stoughton at Spillane Field (posted by 10:33 p.m., reread 11:52 p.m.); Nov. 26 at Bourne, 10 a.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  25. Seekonk boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Season results (2-4 going in); Oct. 30 row: L, 20-22 at West Bridgewater (no final at 9:45 p.m.; posted by 11:53 p.m.); Nov. 26 vs. Dighton-Rehoboth, 10 a.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  26. West Bridgewater boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: W, 22-20 vs. Seekonk (no final at 9:45 p.m.; posted by 11:53 p.m.); Nov. 26 at East Bridgewater, 10 a.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  27. Old Colony boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  28. Stoughton boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Season results (0-7 going in); Oct. 30 row: W, 35-6 at Wareham (posted by 10:33 p.m., reread 11:52 p.m.); Nov. 24 at Canton, Fenway Park, 8 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  29. Southeastern boys varsity football scheduleArbiter Live. Oct. 30 row: no final posted at 9:45 p.m. or 11:53 p.m. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  30. MIAA 2026 Division 1 football power rankingsOct. 30 release, scores entered through 4 a.m. Franklin 8th, Brockton 11th, New Bedford 13th, Taunton 22nd, Durfee 23rd. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  31. MIAA 2026 Division 4 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. Diman 22nd, Bristol-Plymouth 29th. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  32. MIAA 2026 Division 5 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. Apponequet 11th. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  33. MIAA 2026 Division 6 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. Fairhaven 6th, Old Rochester 7th, Case 11th. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  34. MIAA 2026 Division 3 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. Sharon 23rd, Stoughton 24th (0-7). Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  35. MIAA 2026 Division 8 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. Cape Cod Tech 4th, Wareham 17th. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  36. MIAA 2026 Division 7 football power rankingsOct. 30 release. West Bridgewater 14th (3-4), Seekonk 23rd (2-4). Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  37. MIAA: Fall 2026 Tournament Bracket Schedule and GuidelinesFootball cutoff Saturday, Oct. 31; brackets Sunday, Nov. 1, 1 p.m. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  38. The Boston Globe: Saturday's football roundup: New Bedford's stunning turnaround continuesUsed only for the spellings of Lyric Ramos and Tru Gonsalves-Cosme. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  39. The Boston Globe: Thursday's football roundup: ORR tops DartmouthUsed only for the spellings of Chase Afonso and Benji Baptiste. Read Oct. 30, 2026.
  40. The Sippican Week: "Old Rochester varsity football preps for Bishop Stang faceoff" (Sept. 10, 2025)Used only for the spelling of Matt Tobin, from a photo caption. Read Oct. 30, 2026.

This story on the full site