By Bill Murphy
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
I am sitting here wondering when, or if, the Bellows Falls Terrier and Windsor Yellow Jacket football teams will lose again or whether either one of them could possibly have another undefeated season?
Bob Lockerby’s 2022 edition of the Purple Gang showed up right on cue for this season’s opening game Friday night with a 56-40 triumph over their new Division II closest rival, the Brattleboro Colonels.
The next day, Greg Balch’s Green and Yellow Jacks traveled north to Fairfax, where they defeated the same rivals, they had met in last year’s title game, Bellows Free Academy, 40-33.
Two high-quality, high-octane football games, 169 points on the scoreboard and plenty of excitement for the fans. What a beginning to the 2022 high school football season.
In the Bellows Falls-Brattleboro meeting, when I tell you one team had over 500 yards of total offense, with almost 500 of those in the air, and the quarterback threw for six touchdown passes, one would think those numbers belonged to the winning team. That was not the case here. The Terriers didn’t match the Colonels in overall yardage, but they did rush for almost 450 yards and that proved to be the difference in the end.
Winning coach Bob Lockerby tells us, “It came down to the passing game versus the running game and fortunately we prevailed. Based on Coach (Bis) Bisbee’s philosophy, which I adopted as a coach, when you throw the ball, three things can happen and two of them aren’t good and it panned out for us in the end.”
The passing game took hold first in this one, as Brattleboro connected on a 95-yard touchdown pass while cars were still pulling into the parking lot. The two teams traded touchdowns early with Terrier quarterback Jamison Nystrom running one in from 13 yards for the first home team score, and then teammate Eli Allbee offset the next Bratt score with a 31-yard pass play, making it two TD runs versus two TD passes.
Believe it or not, there would be four more touchdowns scored (the two Bellows Falls tallies were by Nystrom on a 65-yard run and Walker James from 45) before the 6:42 remaining point of the first half to keep things even through that time at 28-28.
Coach Lockerby and longtime followers of the Terriers claim this was the largest Hadley Field crowd in years and they definitely were able to get their money’s worth. Although the outcome would stay in doubt into the final moments, Bellows Falls did take the momentum from this point forward with three straight touchdowns. Those six pointers were a Nystrom 28-yard pass to James, a Nystrom 13 yard run and James scoring on a 3-yard run to build a 49-28 advantage. Nystrom was 8-8 on extra points.
Two long Colonel TD passes brought the game back to 49-40 with 7:30 remaining but then a Bratt fumble on their next possession set up the final hometown score by Caden Haskell who lugged the ball in from the 11 and rushed for over 100 yards on the night.
Bellows Falls has a second straight home game Friday night hosting Fair Haven at 7 p.m.
The development of Windsor quarterback Maison Fortin is as big a key as any in the opening day triumph for Greg Balch’s team. Like the Bellows Falls game, the score was all knotted with half the day’s points on the board but for the most part from then on, the winners grabbed the momentum.
Balch said, “in an offensive football game we came up with a couple of big stops and that was the difference. The defense saved the day there, but we still have a lot of things to work out on that side of the ball.”
Windsor scored first in the second half but Bellows Free Academy did come back to take a 27-26 lead. Then Windsor took the lead and were in front 34-33 when the game’s biggest stop was provided by the Jacks near midfield before they ran the clock and marched for the game’s final score.
Fortin was involved in four of the Jacks’ scores, running the ball 1 and 35 yards for TD’s and throwing passes of 28 yards to Roger Petermann and 15 yards to Corey Lockwood. Travis McAllister also ran for two scores for the winners, one for 8 yards and the other for 30. Balch noted Logan Worrall stood out on both sides of the ball throughout the contest.
Windsor will open their home season Saturday at 1 p.m. hosting Missisquoi.
The Stevens Cardinals fell short in their opening encounter at Inter-Lakes. It was the beginning of the Josh Duford era, and the outcome might have been different if mistakes didn’t spoil the day. The former defensive coordinator, now head coach related, “We spoke this week about how early season football is about limiting mistakes as much as it is about making plays. We definitely made more mistakes than the opponent today. Give credit to the Inter-Lakes players and coaching staff. They executed well all day and played relatively mistake-free football. All we can do at this point is put this game behind us and focus on improving for week two.”
Stevens took a 10-0 lead at the outset on a 35-yard field goal by Aiden White, and then an Aldan Barry 5 yard run in the first period. Inter-Lakes countered with a TD with 3:49 to go in the half and then unfortunately one of those preached about mistakes reared its head as the home team intercepted an underthrown pass to an open receiver, which one play later led to the second Inter-Lakes score.
Stevens immediately showed their character in the final minute of the half as a 30-yard connection from White to Kaden Thyne set up a one-yard touchdown run by Jai-Lique Ribeiro for a 16-12 halftime advantage.
Stevens had their chances in the third quarter, but they fell short, and IL scored on their final two touchdowns of the day. The Cards fumbled on their first second half possession and then saw the hosts take the lead for good. Stevens then put together another character drive all the way to the InterL 5 before turning over the football on downs. IL then fumbled deep in their own territory, but the Cards threw a pick six to squander yet another opportunity.
Stevens did score a touchdown on the game’s last play on a 5-yard pass from White to Thyne. Duford’s team is back on the road this week playing a tough Monadnock team on the road at 6:30 in Swanzey.
While Stevens opens with a couple of games on the road, Springfield opens with two at home hosting Windsor’s first week opponent BFA Fairfax Friday night at 7 p.m. The Cosmos had more in common with Stevens than the opposite sites for opening opponents. Mistakes cost them in a 19-8 opening loss to Woodstock.
Coach Todd Aiken tells us, “They just made fewer mistakes than we did. We are very green,” and he had no pun intended referring to the school colors.
The Cosmos were competitive for much of the game trailing only 7-0 at the half and were at 13-0 after three stanzas. The Wasps had their third tally with nine minutes remaining and there was no way the Cosmos could overcome that. The lone Springfield TD came on a Carson Clark to Tanner Gintof 12-yard scoring strike and Clark ran in the conversion.
Aiken is hoping to see his inexperienced team grow throughout the season. The coach was pleased with “the growth Clark has shown as a player and I felt both Aidan Garvey and Luke Stocker ran the ball well”
Fall Mountain dropped their first game 34-0 to a strong Monadnock team but battled the Huskies 6-0 until intermission. Coach Orion Binney lost his quarterback Zach Patch to a wrist injury before the half and what offense they started with completely was lost with his absence. “Patch being injured completely threw off our game plan,” the coach told us.
The Wildcats had played in the Division IV title game in two of the past three seasons but now school enrollment numbers have Binney’s team placed in a tough Division III with much tougher competition. Binney misses the six important seniors who he claims, “played with their hair on fire,” in last falls’ semifinals when they shocked powerful Newport to reach the finals.
“We have thirty-seven players in our program and although we lost some key performers, we have a good senior class made up of a number of players who were given some all-star recognition last year so I believe we can compete with a number of teams in this division if we can keep our players on the field,” Binney reflected a day after the game.
Binney felt that both Vince Rende and Brandon Bator stood out defensively in the opener. The Cats jump back on the bus again to travel to Kearsarge for a 6:30 kick-off Friday.
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