By Bill Murphy
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
How good is this years’ edition of the Stevens Cardinals Football team? From this vantage point it looks like they are quite good. But, quite good, might not be good enough.
Stevens had little interference on their way to a 42-16 victory at Con-Val last weekend. Tank Christian ran for three touchdowns, Jai Roberio carried in two and Luke Smith a single scoring run on the way to the Red and Black’s fifth win in a row.
When the dust settles Stevens most likely will be sitting in fifth place and four Division III teams make the play-offs. Presently Josh Duford’s 5-3 team is tied for fourth place with Inter-Lakes, who defeated them 26-22 back in week one, before Stevens was fully healthy and revving on all cylinders.
The feeling here is that today, the Cardinals are very possibly at the least, the third best team in their division, however, unless they find a way to upset powerful undefeated Trinity Friday night at 7 p.m. at Barnes Park their season will end.
In the Con-Val game, it took Christian’s powerful running to move to a 14-0 advantage after one quarter. He scored on runs of 5 and 3 yards.
One quarter later, Jai Riberio had the stanza’s first two touchdowns on 10- and 4-yard runs. Christian had the next six pointer of the quarter when he lugged the ball 4 yards for the score and then coach Josh Duford called on offensive lineman Smith for a lifetime achievement award, giving him the pigskin from 2 yards out for a score to take a 42-0 lead into intermission. Aiden White booted all six extra points.
Duford pointed out that Kaden Thyne had two first half interceptions and that Robeiro had several long runs and AJ Rozzell had a long pass and run play and some strong rushes as well.
Duford noted that the Cardinals first team defense has kept the opposition scoreless for the last five games and shouted out loads of credit to defensive coordinator Paul Silva. He said, “Paul has been absolutely fabulous defensively all season.”
Todd Aiken’s Springfield Cosmos were in the position of winning their regular season finale at Milton or missing the Vermont Division III play-offs. The Green and White had been getting knocked around by powerhouses Bellows Falls and Windsor the past two weeks. “Obviously those teams were dominant, but we didn’t back down in those losses,” Aiken told us, “We played hard and did what we could.” And now that has paid off.
The Cosmos did sputter on offense early up at Milton. Aiken expressed concern, “the slow start put us in a bad spot. Whether it was the long bus ride or what, we had trouble moving the ball. Then we gave up an important long pass against us, although it was really well covered and they were out in front 8-0,” the coach added.
“We really challenged them to step up at halftime. We felt we were the better team,” Aiken related and the troops responded.
Aiken went on to say, “we started running the ball well again in the third quarter, but the wind was in our face, and it was a factor. Then in the middle of the fourth quarter we were able to get on the board.”
Liam Murphy found the end zone from 7 yards out with about 7:30 to play. Carson Clark rushed for the tying points on the conversion.
The defense then had a tackle for loss and the next possession also had a bad snap and quickly Springfield was on the move again. Just over the two-minute mark Luke Stocker broke loose on a 15-yard TD run to culminate a 45-yard drive and the Green and White were ahead for good. Clark once again rushed in the two-point conversion for the 16-8 triumph.
This sets up a Windsor-Springfield rematch Saturday at 1 on the road for the Cosmos. Aiken told us, “Obviously they are a dominant team but going off our first game there were certain times that we played with them. We know what kind of team they are, but we know historically anything can happen.”
Newport had the strangest week of all. The Tigers didn’t even get a chance to play. Their cross-state foe Mill River cancelled their scheduled meeting a few weeks back. We ask why did the Minutemen even schedule the game in the first place then? John Proper’s team lost an opponent Saturday but not a game on the field.
The Tigers know it is now bear down time. Saturday’s game at home at 2 p.m. hosting Raymond is actually a de facto game for the number two seed. Coming off the unfortunate bye week, the Tigers hope they can get things going early in order to assure themselves of a victory and home field advantage in the semifinal round of the Granite State play-offs.
Proper said, “We are as healthy as we are going to be (Carter Polari is not likely to walk through that door) so we should be ready for Saturday. We have confidence heading into the play-offs. We were not the team we are today when we suffered our only loss, four weeks ago and we hope to keep getting better.”
When Proper was asked about a possible rematch with that one team who defeated the Tigers (top ranked unbeaten Somersworth 35-7) the Tiger coach was hesitant to say much because the Tigers have a couple of games to win to set up a possible rematch, but he did bear witness of the Toppers strong team. Proper commented, “To beat them is going to take a perfect game. They would have to make no mistakes.”
Fall Mountain has the misfortune to play the best two teams in New Hampshire Division III back-to-back the last two weeks of the season. Last Friday night they fell 37-0 to powerful top seed Trinity. This week they travel to Campbell for a noontime Saturday game.
Coach Orion Binney said that “we played very well at the beginning defensively, but “They are so good it didn’t take them long to wear us down. They are a pretty impressive team.”
Trinity led 30-0 by intermission, but the Cats held things close at 9-0 for the first twelve minutes. Then the top team in the division went on a roll.
Binney said Foster Willette had another strong game for FM on offense and he pointed out Tyson Patch standing in for Zack Patch (out for the season) is growing into the quarterback position.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.