BELCHERTOWN – It was a feast of a second quarter for the Belchertown football team.

In just that 12-minute stanza on Thursday morning, the Orioles racked up 304 yards of offense, recovered three squib kicks on special teams, and put 40 points on the board. The dominant frame was more than enough for power Belchertown to a 61-14 victory over Pathfinder in Thanksgiving action to cap the 2023 season.

It was sweet revenge for the Orioles (8-3), which lost to Pathfinder 47-22 in last year’s Turkey Day contest in Thorndike.

“I’m incredibly happy for the kids,” Belchertown head coach Dan McCarthy said. “I think we were all a little upset about how last year had turned out, and wanted to come out today and give a much better effort. We treated this as a state championship game.”

Belchertown opened up the playbook in the second quarter. Chris Daskam’s halfback pass to Brian Fuller went for a 32-yard touchdown, one of a whopping six TDs scored by the home team in the second period.

A lot has to go right to score 40 points in a single quarter, and the Belchertown special teams had a lot to do with setting the offense up in prime positions. McCarthy lauded the work of his special teams coordinator Dennis Driscoll, and the execution of a kickoff unit that recovered three squib kicks in a short span off the foot of Brian Carlin.

“Each week we allocate time working on that and it showed up in a big way for us,” McCarthy said. “I thought our execution was superb in that part of the game. That certainly allows for some confidence when you keep getting the ball back to your offense.”

Who accounted for those six touchdowns in the frame? Daskam started the flurry with a 28-yard TD run, and Michael Muscaro followed with a 3-yard scamper. Fuller’s reception was good for TD No. 3, followed by a 33-yard touchdown pass from QB Landon Andre to Nico St. George. Daskam then caught a 2-yard touchdown toss from Andre, before Andre threw his third touchdown pass of the quarter and fourth of the day when he hit Fuller for a 39-yard score just before halftime. The rout was on, with Belchertown taking a 54-0 lead into halftime.

“I think guys just put their feet in the dirt and got to work there,” McCarthy lauded. “Our offensive line came alive, and it was a release I think of the last two weeks, of losing in the state tournament. They were happy to get back out there and just play.”

Belchertown recovered another squib kick to open the third quarter, and cashed in for their lone TD of the second half when Andre tossed a 35-yard pass to St. George to make it 61-0.

It was running time the entire second half, and Pathfinder scored a pair of late TDs to get on the board. Quarterback Nicholas Pfister hit Jarett Skowyra for a 45-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the third quarter to break up the shutout, and Branden Hnitecki, who was tabbed as Pathfinder’s MVP on the day, broke through for an 8-yard touchdown run late in the fourth to account for the 61-14 final.

Belchertown’s MVP was Daskam, and the senior got the scoring started in the first quarter when he bulled in from 5 yards out to make it 7-0. After recovering an onside kick, Andre connected with Joshua Grillo on a 13-yard scoring strike over the middle for a 14-0 advantage.

Andre put up a monster performance under center, as the senior signal caller finished his final Belchertown outing by completing 10-for-12 passes for 255 yards and five touchdowns. Daskam factored into four TDs – two on the ground, one passing and one receiving – and racked up 158 total yards of offense. St. George had 99 yards of offense and two scores, and Jack Beals added two catches for 58 yards.

It was a fitting conclusion to a standout 2023 campaign, which saw Belchertown win eight games for the first time since 2012.

“I tell the kids that this game means a lot more than just you guys,” McCarthy explained. “Alumni come back and watch, guys who were a part of this program for a long time are here. This is the stuff that you remember years from now, the memories you think back on in high school. They’ve created wonderful memories for the rest of their lives.”

While Belchertown graduates an impressive senior class, including Grillo, Daskam, Andre, St. George and Muscaro, McCarthy hopes the program can continue to build off its state tournament berth next year.

“We’re very excited for the future,” he offered. “It’s a big class to lose but the boys are motivated. They got that taste of the state tournament and they saw what it takes to play with the teams from the eastern part of the state.”

NOTES: A large crowd turned out on a sunny and relatively mild Thanksgiving morning for the 9 a.m. kickoff in Belchertown. The stands were full and the ticket line was still stretched through the gate and up the hill a ways into the first quarter. … The Belchertown cheerleading contingent was put to work. The squad does jumping jacks for every point after every Orioles touchdown. … The pregame festivities included a reading of former Boston Herald scribe Gerry Callahan’s 1992 column “For seniors, Thanksgiving is game of their lives.”