By Bill Murphy
EAGLE TIMES CORRESPONDENT
It’s on to their respective state semi-finals for the Bellows Falls Terriers and Newport Tigers in State Football Play-off action. Bellows Falls won a quarterfinal match-up with Spaulding of Barre 49-0 in the generally means nothing and shouldn’t exist first round of the Vermont Division II postseason last Friday night. The next day Newport earned the tournament number two seed in New Hampshire Division IV with a 45-13 triumph over Raymond in their regular season finale to move on in a system which offers a more reasonably structured tournament format in which only four teams per division advance to the second season.
Many coaches in Vermont happen to agree with our assessment of too many undeserving teams allowed to enter the post season with first round slaughters the theme of the first-round day. Twenty-four of the Green Mountain states thirty-one teams are given an opportunity to play for a championship. Many who only have one or two victories all season long. The BF 49-0 victory is just one example of the result.
BF was an equal opportunity scorer in the first half tallying fourteen points in each of the first two quarters for a 28-0 halftime lead. Halfway through that opening stanza Jesse Darrell scored from six yards out for the first points on the board. Late in the quarter (1:43 left) Caden Haskell scored on a 5-yard run. Walker James had a long run to set up the first score. Jamison Nystrom booted both extra points for the 14-0 advantage.
The BF defense kept doing their thing shutting down Spaulding as the next fourteen points were scored within one minute in the second twelve minutes of play. First James broke another long one, this one lugging the pigskin all the way to the end zone from 55 yards out with 8:14 left in the second and then exactly one minute later following an interception return by Nystrom put the Purple and White in scoring position at the 10, Haskell brought it home from there. Nystrom again booted the two conversions. The Terriers were already thinking ahead towards the semi-finals with the 28-0 lead at the half.
If anyone doubted the Terrier dreams to be true, BF scored again on the first offensive play of the second half when James took off from his own 30-yard line and raced 70 yards for a touchdown. There would be two more victory defining touchdowns in the third period with James converting six on another 30-yard run and then Haskell put the final TD on the board rushing the ball from 75 yards away. Nystrom continued to add extra point conversions following every score.
Lockerby certainly was pleased with his teams’ performance, but his biggest concern lately has been about the challenges his team has not faced. They remain undefeated and have outscored the opponents 208-64 since September with his first team defense hardly being scored upon, but we asked him how long will it take his team to adjust to play again at the speed of the tougher challengers they will face the next two weeks?
“That’s a great question,” the veteran coach responded. “We had the toughest part of our schedule early and played well through that part of our schedule. We have brought this issue up to the players and compared it to the start of the season when we hadn’t played anyone challenging yet. We know Brattleboro (Semi-final foe Friday night home at Hadley Field 7 p.m.) has been in more competitive games in recent weeks and played a high level of football. All we can do is practice at the highest level possible and hope we are ready to go.”
Newport doesn’t have to worry about a string of meaningless games as they just flexed their muscles to acquire the number two seed in a showdown with the Raymond Rams, who also had their eyes on that seed. John Proper felt his team was more talented than his opponent going in and his charges proved him correct with 45-13 breather.
Proper relayed to us, “our emphasis was not to come out flat against Raymond because we were coming off a bye week. It felt like we started a little slow even though we scored on the opening drive.”
Newport didn’t just score on the opening drive; they scored three times and held a 20-0 advantage before Raymond was able to get on the board in the middle of the second quarter. Tyler Gobin’s 6-yard run followed by Eric Wilkinson’s conversion opened the scoring 7-0 and before the twelve-minute opening competition was up Kayden LaClair hauled in a 14-yard scoring strike from Kyle Ashley for a 14-0 lead at the first stopping break.
The Tigers found the end zone first in the second quarter too as Gobin’s 12-yard run made the count 20-0. Then the Rams cut the deficit to fourteen 20-6 before two more Tiger end zone plays upped the count to 32-6 at intermission. Laclair and Gobin took turns adding another score from 29 and 33 yards respectively to take any second seed possible thoughts away from the Rams.
Proper’s team would tally two more times prior to the final Raymond score to push the advantage to 45-6. Gobin had the first of the two scores on a 22-yard run and then Wilkinson had a 7-yard run and added the conversion kick. Gobin rushed for over 200 yards in the game.
Newport has actually waited an entire year for their Saturday semi-final match-up with Bishop Brady home at 1 p.m. One year ago this week the Tigers were shocked by Fall Mountain in the opening round and didn’t get a chance to reach the title game.
Proper emphasizes the terrible ending a year ago and knows it could help fuel a different outcome this fall. He tells us, “They will be reminded every practice this week as to what happened last year.” Proper also believes the Raymond game also came at the near perfect time. “We made halftime adjustments and that led to four interceptions by our defense which was great to see since Bishop Brady runs a similar offense.” It will be interesting to see.
The Fall Mountain team who ended Newport’s season a year ago was moved up to Division III this year and fell short of the play-off picture finishing 4-5 after falling 41-6 to Campbell last Saturday.
“It was a difficult ending to the season for us,” Coach Orion Binney admitted, going on to say, “we lost Zack Patch at quarterback just when the schedule was getting tougher, and we really never recovered from that. Guys stepped up and did their best but the end of season losing streak was partially because we depended on Zack’s leadership and play so much. And the teams took advantage of our weaknesses.” He added, “despite everything, I thought this should be considered a good season for us overall.”
Binney saw his team fall behind 34-0 before they scored against Campbell with the coach once again mentioning the brightest spot on the day was the rushing of Owen Rieandeau who got them on the board with a 3-yard run.
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