Twenty-first century high school football arrived at Hadley Field on Sept. 2, as the Bellows Falls Terriers hung on for a 56-40 win over the Brattleboro Colonels in a wild start to the 2022 season.
How wild? Brattleboro quarterback Devin Speno threw for 494 yards and six touchdowns. Wide receiver Tristan Evans caught four touchdown passes and finished with 10 catches and 220 receiving yards. Running back Cam Frost had two TD grabs, including a 95-yard score on the first play of the game, and finished with 207 receiving yards. James Davies had a 47-yard reception and Charlie Clark had a pair of catches for 20 yards.
Despite the Colonels' pyrotechnics on offense, they still came up short. Why? Start with six unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. Add in a pair of fumbles, then throw in an inability to stop the perennially powerful running game of the Terriers, who scored all but one of their touchdowns on the ground as they piled up 431 yards of rushing. The result was an effort that produced gaudy statistics for the Colonels, but not a victory.
While Speno was 19-for-29 throwing the ball, BF quarterback Jamison Nystrom threw just two passes and completed both for 38 yards and one touchdown - a 28-yard grab by running back Walker James in the first half. Cole Moore had the other reception, for 10 yards.
Instead, Nystrom used his legs to put points on the board. He had 12 carries for 147 yards and three touchdowns and was a perfect 8-for-8 on extra point kicks. He keyed an impressive offensive effort done the old-fashioned way, by controlling the line of scrimmage through sheer brute force.
Despite leaving the game late in the first half with a foot injury and playing hurt in the second half, running back Caden Haskell hobbled his way 129 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown. Walker James had seven carries for 108 yards and two touchdowns, Eli Allbee had seven carries for 36 yards and a TD, and Remington LaCroix had two carries for 11 yards.
Once again this year, Bellows Falls has put together a solid offensive line that gave the Terriers the space to maneuver on the ground. The defense, however, is still a work in progress as evidenced by the show put on by Speno and Evans.
“That was a hell of an effort by Speno and Evans,” said BF head coach Bob Lockerby after the game. “We had no answer for them.”
While the BF secondary was getting torched by Speno and Evans, the Terriers shut down the Colonels' running game, holding them to a total of 39 yards on 15 carries. Speno was the leading rusher with 10 carries for 28 yards, while Frost carried the ball once for six yards.
• All told, it was definitely a night for offense as the teams traded touchdowns in the first half, but BF managed to come away with a 34-28 lead at the break. Frost's streak up the sideline to open the game set the tone, but a mishandled snap on the extra point attempt gave the Colonels a 6-0 lead just 18 seconds into the game.
Nystrom gave BF a 7-6 lead with a 13-yard touchdown run, but Evans responded with a 32-yard TD catch, as well as catching a two-point conversion pass to give Brattleboro a 14-7 lead with 6:19 left in the first quarter. Allbee tied the game with a 23-yard run, and Nystrom ran 65 yards for his second score to put the Terriers in front, 21-14, at the end of the first.
Evans opened the second quarter with a 32-yard touchdown grab, and the Colonels' new kicker Jordan Allembert connected on the first of his two extra points to even the score at 21-21 with 8:36 left in the quarter. James put BF back in front with a 45-yard touchdown run, but Evans again tied the game with a 41-yard scoring catch to make it 28-28 with 6:42 remaining.
James's 28-yard TD catch made it 34-28 with 1:50 left in the half, but the game was stopped with 1:21 to play after BF lineman Dillan Perry was injured and had to be taken off the field on a stretcher. The officials called for an early halftime break, and when play resumed, the Colonels had the ball near midfield and were driving toward another touchdown. The BF defense stopped the Colonels, and the momentum was about to shift in BF's favor.
On their first possession of the second half, Jamison and the Terriers capitalized on a series of penalties by the Colonels and scored on a 23-yard sweep behind a caravan of blockers into the end zone to make it 42-28 with 9:28 left in the third quarter. On the Colonels' next possession, a fumble was recovered by BF lineman Justin Draper on the Brattleboro 38. James later scored on a four-yard run for a 49-28 lead with 1:38 left in the quarter.
Brattleboro battled back in the fourth as Evans caught an 11-yard yard TD pass and Frost caught his second touchdown on a 15-yard grab, but the Colonels failed to score on both two-point conversions, and trailed 49-40 with 7:30 left in the game.
The Colonels had a chance to pull it out, but another fumble late in the fourth led to a 15-yard touchdown run by Haskell to end a game that featured nearly 1,000 yards of combined total offense between the two teams.
It was the 12th straight win for the Terriers, who went 11-0 last season to win the Division II state championship. They will host Fair Haven this Friday at 7 p.m. Brattleboro will host Colchester in their home opener at Natowich Field this Friday at 7 p.m.
Field hockey
• Brattleboro started out strong and finished up strong, but it was the stretches in between where the Colonels struggled in their 3-2 loss to the Otter Valley Otters in the season opener on Sept. 3 at Sawyer Field.
The Colonels got off to a fast start when Lilly Bingham scored in the first 70 seconds of the game. After that, the Otters controlled the flow of play and kept the ball almost exclusively around the Colonels' goal for the rest of the first half.
Otter Valley tied the game with 5:50 left in the first quarter with a goal from Ryleigh Laporte. At the start of the second quarter, the Otters struck quickly and got a goal from MacKenzie McKay in the first 74 seconds of the quarter.
Despite the Otters having a 10-3 advantage in penalty corners in the first, good defense and goaltending kept the Colonels in the game. When Bingham scored again with 5:40 left in the second quarter to tie the game, it looked like Brattleboro had a chance to take control.
Unfortunately, the Otters took the initiative and McKay scored what proved to be the game-winning goal with 10:52 left in the third quarter. The Colonels managed to put some pressure on the Otters' goal in the final minutes of the game, but came up empty.
Still, Colonels coach Erin Cooke said she saw enough in those two flashes of activity at the beginning and the end of the game to be encouraged.
“There was a lot of nervous energy, and defending all those corners tired us out, but we still came on strong at the end,” she said. “We just have to keep getting better every day.”
The most encouraging thing for Cooke is that there are 10 ninth-graders on the team this season, which she says is a sign that efforts to build up the field hockey program are starting to pay off.
• Bellows Falls rolled to a 9-0 victory over the Springfield Cosmos in their home opener on Sept. 2 in Westminster.
Ashlin Maxfield scored four goals, Emma Bazin added two more, and Hannah Terry, Ava LaRoss, and Sadie Scott also scored as the Terriers dominated from start to finish.
Considering they were beaten 22-0 by the Terriers last season, the 9-0 score represented something of a victory as Springfield goalies Zada Grant and Gretchen Gilcris faced lots of shots by the Terriers.
Friday Night Roller Skating at Withington Rink
• The Brattleboro Recreation & Parks Department continues to offer Friday Night Roller Skating at the Nelson Withington Skating Facility at Living Memorial Park on Sept. 9, 16, 23, and 30, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The snack bar will be open and various snacks will be available for purchase. No outside food or drinks are allowed. Participants need to bring their own roller skates/roller blades. Helmets are required for all, and knee and elbow pads are recommended.
Daily fees are $3 for Brattleboro resident students and $4 for Brattleboro resident adults. Add $1 for non-residents.
If your roller moves are a little rusty, or non-existent, Ruth Shafer will be offering roller skating/blading lessons to both adults and youth prior to public skating and blading time. The fee for four days of instruction (Sept. 9, 16, 23, and 30) is $35 for Brattleboro residents and $50 for non-residents.
This is a great beginner's program that will teach you the basics of how to safely stand, stop, and start, then work up to confident forward and backwards skating. Ruth is a local artist who grew up ice skating at the Brattleboro rink. She says she taught herself to roller skate during the pandemic and can't stop convincing people to try it out.
Youth lessons for those 5 to 15 years of age are from 5:30 to 6 p.m., with a maximum of six participants. Adult lessons for those 16 and older are from 6 to 6:30 p.m., with a maximum of eight participants. Both classes are for skates/quads only. Helmets are required and pads are recommended, and participants who intend to stay for the public skating time will still need to pay the admission fee.
For information on all programs, events, facility information, and more, visit the Recreation & Parks website at www.brattleboro.org.
Local runners do well in Race to the Top of Vermont
• Three local runners finished in the top 100 in the Race to the Top of Vermont in Stowe on Aug. 28.
This event is a 4.3 mile run up the Mount Mansfield Toll Road to the summit of Vermont's tallest mountain. Tammy Richards, 48, of Williamsville finished in 32nd overall and seventh in the women's division in a time of 48 minutes, 27.8 seconds. Matt Mann, 52, of Brattleboro was 43rd in 51:01.7, while Joel Martell, 32, of Brattleboro finished 56th in 53:02.7.
Joseph Davis, 35, of Chaplin, Conn., was the men's winner in 36:24.5, while Margie Freed, 24, of Craftsbury was the women's winner, finishing eighth overall in 41:41.3.
Senior bowling roundup
• The fall/winter season of the Brattleboro Senior Bowling League opened on Sept. 1 at Brattleboro Bowl with eight teams. We'll learn their names next week but, for now, Team 4 is 5-0, while Team 1, Team 7, and Team 6 are all 4-1. Team 2, Team 8, Team 5 are all 1-4, and Team 3 is 0-5.
Nancy Dalzell had the women's high handicap game (251) and series (672). Skip Shine had the men's high handicap game (259), while Gary Montgomery had the high handicap series (662). Team 1 had the high team handicap game (910) and series (2,518).
In scratch scoring, Warren Corriveau Sr. led the men with a 582 series that featured games of 204 and 192. Gary Montgomery had a 548 series that featured a 198 game. Robert Rigby had a 543 series that featured a 209 game, while Jerry Dunham had a 521 series with a 206 game. Shine had the men's high game with a 221.
Dalzell (519) had the women's high scratch series, which featured a 176 game. Shirley Aiken had the high scratch game (186), while Josie Rigby had games of 178 and 173.