By Bill Murphy
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If one of your favorite pastimes in the fall is forecasting high school football games, you may not be on your game this year. Like many other things in these pandemic times, you are likely a little off.
There has been a pattern the first two weeks. Some of the smaller schools who are sometimes bullied by bigger schools in scholastic play, are pulling off David wins against Goliath in gridiron action.
The Springfield Cosmos have become more competitive in recent seasons, but, this fall, they aren’t just competitive, they are deeply into every game. They challenged Brattleboro 24-21 as we previously reported last week and then they easily disposed of Woodstock over the past week twice 31-0 on the road last Tuesday and then 38-13 Friday night at Brown Field. Four different Cosmos caught touchdown passes from Sam Presch at Woodstock including Luke Stocker, Caleb Roby, Chris Jeffers and Nathan Leonard. Quentin Andrews converted on the extra point after each score and added a 27-yard field goal.
Both Tanner Gintof and Logan Roundy were on the receiving end of two Presch scoring passes on Friday and Gintof added three intercepted passes to his resume. Stocker caught an additional scoring toss. Andrews converted the kick after on all five touchdowns and added a 20-yard field goal.
“It continues to excite us just to play any kind of football. It’s also exciting to play so well,” Cosmos coach Todd Aiken said. Springfield has Hartford twice on the schedule this week. Wednesday they are at Hartford at 6 p.m., with the second meeting with the Hurricanes Friday night at 7 at Brown Field.
While Springfield has gone 2-1, the Windsor Yellow Jackets have done exactly the same. Greg Balch’s Jacks grabbed everyone’s attention with their opening victory over Hartford and then in the past week they split a pair of very competitive games with Brattleboro. The Jacks fell at home last midweek 26-19 to the Colonels before traveling south later in the week to return the favor claiming a 27-21 triumph in which they had the pleasure of running out the clock at games end.
“I thought we played really poorly in the first game. We had the ball three times inside the 5 and couldn’t score and if you can believe it, we completed a pass from the 1 and didn’t score. We had our chances,” Balch said. The veteran coach went on to say, “Down there we controlled things long enough to be sure to win.”
Austin Gauld caught two scoring passes in the first of the two encounters and Owen Abrahamsen hauled in one. Ben Gilbert kicked an extra point. Abrahamsen tallied another touchdown in the second meeting with Bratt as did teammates Logan Worrall, Jackson Davis and Gilbert. Gilbert was also successful on a two point conversion pass and Kaleb Swett kicked an extra point. The Jacks have 0-2 Bellows Falls as an opponent this week, Wednesday at BF at 4 p.m. and then Saturday afternoon at home at 1 p.m. Despite the fact the Terriers are winless, Balch was guarded in talking about this weeks’ match-up.as he pointed out, “I wouldn’t count BF out in anyway. They always are a team that comes to play.”
Bob Lockerby’s Terriers faced Hartford last week and lost at home during the week 33-20 before being shutout at Hartford Friday night 17-0 in a game played for the most part in a heavy fog. Lockerby mentioned he has seen his teams compete over the years in strange weather, but, pointed out “not many games in the fog. Maybe one up at North Country one year. We’ve played in different types of snow and some torrential rains, but, not many fog games.”
All of the Terriers scoring for the week took place at home where Jack Burke, Logan Lisai and Dom Kendall scored on touchdown passes, while Jeb Monier converted twice on extra point conversions.
One question presented to all three coaches was whether they expected the seven on seven game to catch on as a popular activity and whether it might become the summer version of the sport as Legion baseball and summer basketball leagues are present in most communities? Aiken and Balch expressed interest, while Lockerby believes “it would spread kids in this town too thin. I have always believed sports are meant to be played in season and baseball is the summer sport. We have many athletes who play more than one sport and it would be too much.”
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