Last night, the combined JV and freshman football team took on the Forest Hills Eastern Hawks on a frigid first day of fall. The Rangers got to work, with sophomore Brady Osterhouse scoring a touchdown on their first drive. Then, it looked as if Eastern would respond with a touchdown of their own until sophomore Ty Ryan picked off the Eastern QB at the 20-yard line. They then went back to work, marching the ball down the field and giving it to sophomore Micah Meadow for the 15-yard touchdown. The first quarter ended with FHC up 14-0.

In the second, the rangers gave up a 60-yard touchdown to the Hawks but managed to get their third touchdown of the night when freshman Nick Williams launched a pass to sophomore Brendan Cargill for the score with twenty seconds left, putting FHC up 21-8 going into halftime.

“It was a perfect pass by Nick,” Cargill said. “He is really talented and has a strong arm. He was able to loft it high and far enough for me to run right under it.”

The second-half kickoff did not go as the team would have liked, as the Hawks recovered the onside kick. However, FHC forced the three and out and then got right back to work, with Brady completing a pass for another Ranger touchdown, this time by Ty. The extra point was blocked, but the score put the rangers up 27-8.

The FHC offense would not make it back to the endzone for the rest of the game. It seemed almost as if the two offenses had switched, as Eastern was beginning to find a spark and scored two touchdowns in the 4th quarter. Fortunately, the Rangers stayed strong and held on to win their 4th straight game, 27-24.

Despite the huge 4th quarter run, sophomore Jake Kelderman did not doubt that his team would secure the win.

“I knew that we were going to execute the game plan and that the freshmen were going to stay strong,” Kelderman said. However, he said they would have to sharpen up for next week’s game. “Defensively, we need to not let up as many points, and our D-line needs to stay strong because Lowell likes to run it up the middle.”

FHC will be back in action next week against the Lowell Red Arrows at home at 6:30 p.m. and are looking to push their win streak to five games.