Newport Tigers Sink Claws into Cosmos

By Chris Laclair
Eagle Times Sports Editor
SPRINGFIELD, NH — British actor Rob James-Collier once said, “If you rile a tiger, he’s going to show his claws.” 

The Springfield Cosmos riled up the Tigers by scoring on a 60-yard run on their first drive of the game by young superstar Keaton Thurber. Newport would then claw its way to an 18-6 victory by scoring 18 unanswered points Sunday morning, Oct. 1, on the road in front of a large crowd.

Newport Tiger Colton Pond showed why he would be closer to a Bengal rather than a regular tiger as he is the strongest player on the team on both sides of the ball, similar to a Bengal. Pond would have back-to-back 13-yard rushes to drive the ball down into Springfield territory. Carmine DiPaola would carry multiple defenders all the way to the 6-yard line before they could bring him down. Pond would punish would be tacklers into the endzone as he smashed his way through the line to score a touchdown to tie the score.

The Cosmos next drive didn’t go as well as their first as they fumbled the exchange from the center to the quarter on their first two downs, which they recovered. Ryan Wilson would give the Tigers a taste of what he was capable of as he took a reverse for 14 yards to the right to secure the first down. Back-to-back pitches to the running backs would be for loss of yards on the next two plays. Thurber would pick up a big 10-yard run, but it wouldn’t be enough for the first down setting up a fourth down and 6. Samuel Wright would pull off an electrifying run into Tiger territory to pick up the first down. The Tiger defense held their ground and caused the turnover on downs.

Newport would hurt themselves in their next series with a pair of encroachment penalties on their linemen. Speedy Jaxson Gosselin would try to turn on the boosters on a reverse, but the Cosmos saw it coming and tackled him for a loss of 3 yards. On fourth down and 9 from the Tiger 47-yard line, Pond broke free to the for the rushing touchdown for a 12-0 lead.

At halftime, Springfield Defensive Coach Earl Moul was asked about any adjustments that his team needed to make against the Tigers.

“We aren’t going to make a whole lot on defense, the offense that we have coming out right now is actually our stronger offense, so I think we will be alright,” he said.

Pond would continue to dominate the second half. He broke free at the line of scrimmage from their own 27-yard line to around the Tiger 40-yard line when he was almost tackled at his shoelaces. He escaped the tackle to take it to the house for the touchdown. Gosselin would try to take the reverse into the endzone to convert the 2-point conversion, but Connor Rogers had other plans with a big tackle.

Wilson would have the nicest rushing attempt of the game as he pulled out all his Madden tricks, spinning left, back peddling and sidestepping to the left for a big gain before being tackled by Tiger Joey Tibbetts. Pond would force a fumble and make the recovery for the takeaway.

The Tigers would fail on their next drive but got a huge punt from Pond all the way down inside of the Cosmo 20-yard line.

Pond would force another fumble and recovery as he was all over the field playing various roles.

“It was a hard-fought game by both sides. Springfield played hard and tough the entire game and had the early first touchdown of the game,” said Newport Tiger Head Coach Kendel Sayer. “Then we got our defense to settle down and tighten up to keep them off the scoreboard the rest of the game. We got lucky with some big runs from Colt and Carmine to get us much needed scores. We had some young players that don’t get much play time that came up huge today starting on offense and defense. Springfield kept the pressure the entire game and had great sportsmanship throughout the game. Those kids are going to grow together and be a force in the years to come.”

The older Newport Tigers grades 5-6 team defeated the Cosmos 34-0 in the earlier game.