AHOSKIE – Five weeks ago, Hertford County High School’s football team found themselves on an express elevator, heading for the basement in a big hurry.

Saddled with four straight losses to open the 2004 campaign, the Bears appeared ready for an early hibernation. Many diehard fans were second-guessing the decision to hire former Ahoskie High School standout Greg Watford, who returned this year to his alma mater to guide the HCHS gridiron fortunes.

Now, all is right with the world in Bear territory as Kenneth Liverman and LaMarcus Bond each cracked the 100-yard rushing barrier here last night to lead HCHS to their fourth win in the last five outings – this one a 42-0 drubbing of First Flight High School.

With the win, HCHS improved to 4-5 overall and 4-1 inside the Northeastern Coastal Conference wars.

Liverman (a game-high 147 rushing yards on 12 carries) and Bond (6-131) proved just too tough for the First Flight defense. That duo combined for four of Hertford County’s six touchdowns. The Bears finished with 426 total yards, 357 of which came on the ground on 33 carries.

Meanwhile, the HCHS defense was tossing a shutout. Sparked by the play of senior defensive end Cedric Fields, who had a pair of quarterback sacks for minus 23 yards, the Bears limited their Dare County guests to 86 total yards. In the first half alone, HCHS had more penalty yards (45) than First Flight had total yards (27).

HCHS scored all the points they would wind-up needing on the game’s opening possession where the Bears drove 73 yards in six plays capped by Bond’s 31-yard TD gallop with 9:35 remaining in the first quarter. Michael Burton split the uprights with his PAT, the first of six straight successful kicks by the sophomore kicker.

The Bears added another first quarter score when, two plays after a Nighthawks punt, Liverman took off on a 51-yard jaunt to paydirt.

Bond made it a 21-0 lead at the 10:12 mark of the second quarter when he took a pitchout around the left end, cut back to the right and was off to the races with a 62-yard scoring run.

HCHS completed the rout with a trio of second half touchdowns.

Quarterback Danny Dembry got that rolling late in the third quarter when he called his own number and reeled off a 58-yard run to the endzone. After a First Flight turnover, Jaquin Sessoms scored from 18 yards out to make it a 35-0 lead.

Bond capped the scoring with his 60-yard touchdown off a punt return with 10:30 left in the game.

HCHS will host Manteo at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 29 in the Bears final regular season home game.