Few football coaches were happy with having to play 7-on-7 touch football last year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bellows Falls coach Bob Lockerby was among the unhappiest. The Terriers are all about running the football, and have been that way for decades. Touch football took away running, blocking, and tackling, and forced the Terriers to play a totally alien style of ball.
Thankfully, 11-on-11 tackle football returned to Vermont on Sept. 3, and Bellows Falls was back to playing Terriers Football - the hard-nosed, hard-hitting, ground-pounding game that is BF's speciality.
BF's 36-7 win over the Brattleboro Colonels before a big crowd at Natowich Field was even sweeter for the Terriers, as they avenged a 2019 loss to the Colonels in the 2019 Division II championship game and a 2020 loss in the touch football playoffs.
“It went the way we wanted it to go,” said Lockerby, whose team ran the ball 37 times for 329 yards. “We had run the ball well versus Burr & Burton [the previous week], but that was just a scrimmage.”
While all the points were scored on the ground, the BF offense showed diversity. Jed Lober led the way with 11 carries for 177 yards and a 65-yard touchdown run. Jeb Monier added touchdown runs of 2 and 19 yards, quarterback Jonathan Terry had an 8-yard TD, and Harrison Gleim scored on a 1-yard run.
The holes were opened up by BF guards Dillan Perry and Patrick Barbour, tackles Peter Kamel and Kevin Patterson and center Jake Moore. They're not as large and imposing as BF linemen have been in past years, but Lockerby likes what he sees so far,
“Our offensive line is getting better and better,” said Lockerby. “I'm very happy with them. They worked hard, but they're going to be out-sized in most games.”
Brattleboro couldn't get much going on offense. BF played a stout defense and almost earned the shutout until Tristan Evans reeled in a 22-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Devin Speno with 4:09 left in the game.
Aaron Petrie had two great catches for the Colonels for a total of 46 yards. Cam Frost and Noah Perusse were Brattleboro's top rushers with 20 and 15 yards, respectively.
This Friday night at 7, Bellows Falls (1-0) has its opener against Mount Anthony, while Brattleboro (0-1) hosts Lyndon.
Late game heroics lift Colonel booters over GM
• On paper, a Division I boys' soccer team should have no problem beating a Division III team. At Natowich Field on Sept. 4, the Green Mountain Chieftains were poised to blow up that script, until the Brattleboro Colonels rallied with two improbable goals in the final three minutes to pull out a 3-2 win.
Brattleboro had trouble getting their offensive attack together in the first half, while GM had plenty of chances. It was a scoreless for the 38 minutes, thanks to the goalkeeping of Paul “The Wall” McGillion. But GM's Ben Munukka broke through with a goal in the 39th minute for a 1-0 lead.
During intermission, coach Ben Brewer and senior captains Magnus von Krusenstiern, Emilio Ogden, and Reed Sargent tried to fire up the Colonels. “We needed to find our energy and effort, and we did that in the second half,” said Brewer.
Jordy Allembert got the equalizer four minutes into the second half off a feed from Tate Chamberlin, but the Chieftains again took the lead when Austin Kubisek faked out McGillion and pushed the ball into a open net to make it 2-1 with 27:42 left in the game.
The energy and effort was there, but the Colonels needed two big breaks to win this game. The first came with 2:37 left in regulation, when a GM defender deflected the ball into his own team's net to tie the game.
“That was huge momentum shift for us,” said Brewer. “We knew we weren't going to lose after that.”
But Brewer and the Brattleboro players thought that win would come in overtime. They didn't quite count on winning it in regulation. But win it they did.
As the final seconds ticked down, McGillion took a free kick from midfield. The ball sailed toward the GM goal, where Tucker Sargent knocked it with 6.4 seconds to play for the game-winning goal.
The 1-0 Colonels travel to Woodstock on Sept. 9.
Terriers stickers roll over Cosmos
• Outnumbered and outgunned, the Springfield Cosmos field hockey team tried their best against the visiting state champion Bellows Falls Terriers, but came up short in a 12-0 demolition in the season opener on Sept. 3.
Springfield dressed only 11 players against the Terriers, who took great pains to not run up the score. Coach Bethany Coursen put her offense on defense, and put her defenders up front to get some time on offense. The goals still kept coming.
Ashlin Maxfield scored three times to lead the Terriers. Grace Bazin and Arianna Wunderle each scored two goals, and Maya Waryas, Sadie Scott, Ava LaRock, Madi Haskell, and Emma Bazin each added a goal. It was Emma's first varsity goal.
The 1-0 Terriers host Windsor on Sept. 8.
Dana earns a bronze medal in Tokyo
• Alicia Dana of Putney has said that the 2020 Paralympics in Tokyo would likely be her last. If so, she went out with one final appearance on the podium.
The 52-year-old recumbent handcyclist finished third in the women's H1-4 Cycling Road Race event in Oyama, Japan on Sept. 1.
Winning the bronze medal was a bit of redemption for the hard luck she had in her other event the day before, the women's H1-4 Cycling Time Trial.
A silver medalist in this event in the Rio Paralympics in 2016, Dana was a favorite in this year's games. She led by 40 seconds in the final lap of the race, but a busted chain just a half-lap from the finish line took her out of the running for a medal. She finished sixth in the 16-kilometer event.
It was a big disappointment for Dana, but had little time to dwell upon it with the road race event set for the following day. She hung tough on a difficult 26.4 kilometer course, and finished behind Jennette Jansen of the Netherlands and Germany's Annika Zeyen. Dana's time was 56 minutes, 24 seconds, just nine seconds behind Jansen.
If Dana is indeed done with world-level competition, she has accomplished quite a lot. In nearly a decade of being a member of the U.S. Paralympics Cycling national team, she won the overall World Cup titles in 2015 and 2017 and has won 10 medals in world championship events to go with her two Paralympic medals.
Senior bowling roundup
• The fall/winter season of the Brattleboro Senior Bowling League at Brattleboro Bowl began on Sept. 2 with eight teams.
Team 4 (5-0) opened the season undefeated. Teams 1, 5, and 8 (all 4–1) are tied for second, followed by Teams 6, 7, and 2 (all 1-4), and Team 3 (0-5).
Pamela Greenblott had the women's high handicap game (265), while Carol Gloski had the high handicap series (652). Norm Corliss had the men's high handicap game (240), while Don Powers had the high handicap series (682). Team 1 had the high team handicap game (887) and series (2,493).
In scratch scoring, Robert Rigby led the men with a 591 series that featured games of 201, 195, and 195. Chuck Adams had a 224 game as part of his 568 series, while Warren Corriveau Sr. had a 190 game as part of his 538 series, and Jerry Dunham rolled a 511 series.
Nancy Dalzell had the high scratch game (208), while Gloski had a high scratch series of 508 to lead the women. Greenblott had a 207 game, while Carole Frizzell rolled a 199, and Shirley Aiken had a 181.