Sitting here wondering about how a Fall Mountain-Stevens football game last Friday night made so much more sense than the football games the Wildcats and Cardinals actually played.
Obviously we understand when teams are not placed in the same division, meeting on the gridiron likely doesn’t happen in the ranks of New Hampshire football. However, instead of Fall Mountain defeating Bishop Brady 42-7 and Stevens falling far short of Trinity 48-0, a meeting of the geographically well located Connecticut River Valley rivals would have made for a better football game and may well have brought out the largest crowd of the season for both schools.
We are allowed to dream a little bit aren’t we? The Eagle Times asked both coaches to dream along with us. Orion Binney told us, “It would make for a tougher schedule but I definitely favor it. You see how excited everyone gets for the Bernard Cup and the Kirby Cup and when we play Stevens in basketball you want to be a part of it.”
Upnorth Cardinal head man Paul Silva agreed.
“We would have very good games with them,” going on to say that because of divisional play, “I don’t see us meeting anytime soon. We do get together for 7-on-7 in the summer. He and his staff have put together quite a program that had been in disarray.”
Moving on from the dream phase into reality, Fall Mountain led 22-0 by the time the first period had ended last Thursday night and the 35-0 advantage at the half tells one all they need to know about this one.
On the Stevens end, powerful Trinity maneuvered a similar pattern with a 14-0 lead at the quarter and 34-0 at intermission, on the way to their day.
For Fall Mountain, Luke Gay connected with Brady Elliot three more times on touchdown passes, the first establishing the early first quarter lead of 7-0 on a 15-yard pass play, a little later on a 45-yard hookup and again a little bit prior to halftime on a play of 9 yards. Additional Fall Mountain scores came from Zach Patch on a 5-yard run and Josh Devore on a 20-yard run and finally in the final stanza from Porter Willet on a 29-yard scoring rush. On conversions, Foster Willett made two kicks and Gay had two two point conversions.
Binney has been concerned much of the season about his team focusing well enough to show the consistency needed to become a play-off team.
“I’d say we’re getting there, but there’s still some things we need to work on.”
Their task is clearly in front of them, two victories in the remaining two games should give the Wildcats that opportunity. Fall Mountain has their Senior Game Friday at 7 p.m. versus Franklin and then completes their season on the road the following Saturday at Mascoma.at Noon.
Despite the final score in the Stevens game, Silva spoke fondly of his squad which has been hit with the injury bug harder than any other area eleven.
“These guys play hard for four quarters. This is all I can ask of the 19 players who dressed.”
The Cardinals now have their Senior Night on Friday at 7 p.m. versus Campbell.
In closing, neither state in the Connecticut River Valley has things figured out when it comes to rivalry games. Vermont plays these encounters in the regular season, for the most part replacing divisional games, in a manner which often harms the ratings of both participants. Such was true of the Bellows Falls-Springfield game played last Friday night.
I don’t have a good solution because there isn’t one, but, without a good one, the proposal here is both states allow a glorified exhibition game (the final scrimmage) the week before the season begins and teams would be allowed to play under game conditions and rules and charge admission. Not a great idea, but likely the only realistically possible one.
Bill Murphy is a sports columnist for the Eagle Times.
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