The Rangers found themselves in a rough hole nearing halftime. They trailed 16-0 and hadn’t gotten anything going on the offensive side of the ball. This changed when sophomore quarterback Nick Williams found sophomore Adam Piotrowski from eight yards out, giving the JV football team some momentum.
“All I had to do was run the route,” Piotrowski said. “Nick threw a perfect ball away from the corner. It was just an easy catch. It was good blocking from the o-line and a perfect throw.”
Unfortunately, the rest of the game did not go well for the Rangers. Piotrowski’s catch turned out to be about half of the points FHC would push across all night as the Lowell Red Arrows dominated. The Rangers dropped their final home game of the year, 38-14.
Despite the constant struggles FHC had to both defend and attack, head coach Tony Sultini thinks there are some positive takeaways from the game.
“We went down early, 16-0,” Sultini said. “What you build off of there is not laying down and not quitting. Sometimes teams get so dejected and demoralized that they pack it in, and these guys came down late and scored. We build on that, making sure the game isn’t over until the fourth quarter is done.”
With the season wrapping up next week, the players get one more opportunity to perform on the field. Sultini urges that the players embrace this opportunity.
“Next week is week nine,” Sultini said. “They have one more opportunity to make the tackle they haven’t made in a while or at all, to score the touchdown that they want or haven’t had yet. After that, it’s a long offseason. You have one more shot at it.”
With a score this lopsided, obviously, some things didn’t go right for the Rangers on Thursday. Sophomore Sam Bauchan acknowledges what needs to improve for FHC next time out.
“Tackles and blocking need to be better,” Bauchan said. “That’s definitely a big factor in this game. We definitely need to get more stops on defense since they were just running it up the middle a lot. Getting up the middle trying to stop the ball has really been our biggest problem. It’s mainly just a defensive thing.”
Next week will mark the last time FHC’s sophomores step onto the field as JV players, meaning there might be a little extra emotion on the field. Bauchan realizes the significance of next week’s game.
“There will definitely be some extra emotion,” Bauchan said. “It’s the last game; it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be kind of weird since I’ll never be a JV player again. I started last year, so it’s a little sad to let it go because I’ll have different coaching going forward, but we move on and we grow. We have to.”
Growing, in fact, will be a theme for the week ahead as the Rangers have to figure out how to turn the positives this week into some success. Adam realizes this.
“We have a chip on our shoulder right now,” Bauchan said. “We’re mad. We’re going to go hard in next week’s practice. We’re going to work hard to beat Greenville. We’ve got to win the last game of the season, so we’re going to work hard in practice. We’ve got to stay mad and come out with victory.”
With the season beginning to wind down, some players already look forward to next season. Sultini notices this and has some advice.
“Football is 365,” Sultini said. “Even though week nine is coming and our lower-level season is coming to a close, we still have to do things in the offseason. We just faced a really tough team; they were very strong, and the offseason is where you make your gains.”
