Staff photos by Jason Orfao Bedford’s Sydney Lynch (30) carries the ball upfield on April 14 during a 17-2 win over Nashua South at Stellos Stadium.

NASHUA – Bedford coach Christine Hodgdon was looking forward to see her team in action.

The Bulldogs responded with a 17-2 thrashing of Nashua South last week at Stellos Stadium in the season opener.

Kennedy Boyle, Hannah McCarthy and Sydney Lynch each tallied four goals for the Bulldogs (1-0), who were the No. 1 team in the 2016 regular season before falling to Pinkerton in the semifinals.

MacKenzie Chou scored a pair of goals, while Maddie Groves, Mackenzie MacEacern and Brooke Burdon also found the back of the net for Bedford.

“We were anxious and waiting to play our first game and see how our chemistry was,” Hodgdon said. “When you have six different people scoring in high numbers, that’s really good.”

The Panthers received goals from Kirsten McIntyre – cutting it to 2-1 with 16:44 left in the first half – and Emily Colburn accounted for the second-half tally. Bedford goalie Emily Burton made four saves while facing limited threats thanks to a stingy defensive effort from the Bulldogs.

Hodgdon was encouraged by the opening victory and said the main goal early in the season is for her team to quickly find its form in the transition game.

“That’s something you don’t typically get in sync with until the first three or four games. That really makes a huge difference,” Hodgdon said. “Our transition game is something we’re going to focus on.”

Abbey Rowe stood tall in goal with 26 saves, but the South sophomore couldn’t stop the potent Bulldogs as the Panthers fell to 0-2 on the young campaign.

“I’m really happy to see great goaltending by Nashua South,” Hodgdon said. “That really caught us by surprise and made us work a little harder, especially with our shot selection, and feeding and trying to move that goalie – so well played by South. I felt like (Rowe) really forced us to get a lot of people involved rather than just one or two people who typically score all of our goals.”