Hyde - 14
Pomfret - 8

The season has been full of trials. Coaching players new to the game is difficult; frustration, lack of understanding, underdeveloped skill, and the players have some setbacks too. But coaching young players at Hyde brings new meaning to the word ‘challenge.’ And this is precisely why I love it! Driven players and impassioned coaches can sink so much of themselves into a team and come out with very little tangible result at the end of a season. That effort is not lost however. If un-’spent,’ the heartache, work, and energy go into what Malcolm Gauld called and Coach Jenkins referred to today as the ‘Effort Savings Bank.’ Today’s game exemplified a cash payout of that effort. It seems we’d been building interest.

Today was much cooler and windier than the previous several and that factored in major ways. We’d worked on a passing game all week only to find it unavailable to us on the first several offensive drives of the game. This led us to lean more heavily than usual on our 5 running backs;  Zayd ‘Don King’ Atkinson ’10, Ben ‘Starsky’ Lieber ’12, Noah ‘Luther Vandross’ Bell ’12, and a pair of first year football players Brendan ‘Sweet Pea’ Stier ’13 and Sabrina ‘G.I. Jane’ Padro ’10. After ‘Don King’s’ diving first down wasn’t chained into more first downs, the next scary couple of possessions saw both ‘Starsky’ and ‘G.I. Jane’ injured and they came out of the game.

The Defense, being put to the test with the amount of time on the field, made some incredible stands, allowing only a few plays of more than 7 yards and 8 points in the second quarter. This herculean effort was spearheaded by Owen ‘Bubba Sparks’ Knapp ’12, the risen again Matt ‘Wild Thing’ Williams ’11, Forrest ‘The Animal’ Smith ’12 (with a pair of fumble recoveries on the game), Alex ‘Prodigal Son’ Stoupas ’11, and Gage ‘Cousin It’ Verronneau ’10.

The offensive line got it together and the Wolfpack began to move the ball in the second quarter. ‘Luthor Vandross’ scored 6 to answer the 8 posted by Pomfret.  This O-line was spearheaded by Alex ‘Daisy Dukes’ Blumenthal ’10, ‘Bubba Sparks’, the ‘Prodigal Son,‘ as well as George ‘Spicoli’ Hammond ’11, and Josh ‘Jaws’ McCowan ’12. With tenacity and a spirit of fun and brotherhood, the Wolfpack punched in for eight more with a ‘Starsky’ TD (he returned to the game in the third) and a Alex ‘Broadway Joe’ Kent ’10 keeper for 2 in the third and never looked back.

The Wolfpack Play of the Year^TM came in the 3^rd quarter when ‘Luthor Vandross’ was wrapped up short of the first down after an eight yard run. He continued to pump his feet and work for those yards. No sooner did the team see him still on his feet than were five other boys in blue pushing at the pile to add to the yardage. When ‘Vandross’ was finally stopped and the whistle blew, the chains were moved. Synergy in action!

Pomfret made it exciting by converting on 3rd & long in the 4th quarter, but the defense was determined and dispelled any hope that the visiting team had in four remaining plays.

Today’s message; ‘Put in the effort and it’ll pay off.’ We’re a proud 1-5 team, ending on a high of a win and a sense of ourselves as a team.

Thanks fans for a great season and we’ll see you in 2010 for our next ’space odyssey’ when we look to blast off from the foundation created this year.