For the first time since 2003, the Bellows Falls Terriers football team are state champs.
BF rolled over the Windsor Yellowjackets, the defending Division III champs, 39-22, on Saturday at Castleton State College's Spartan Stadium.
The top-seeded Terriers (8-3) made their first trip to a championship game since losing to South Burlington in the 2005 Division II final. The Terriers last won a title in 2003 with a 43-0 win over Burlington in the Division II final. Saturday's victory was the 10th state title overall for Bellows Falls, second only to Mount St. Joseph's 12 titles.
This was the third straight trip to the Division III title game Windsor (9-2). Both of their losses this season were to Bellows Falls. The Jacks lost to BF, 20-0, on Oct. 9 at MacLeay-Royce Field. Windsor won its first state title last year against Springfield.
Windsor got themselves in a deep hole with four turnovers in the first half, two of which were turned into touchdowns by BF.
BF's Ryan Hayward, their senior workhorse running back, scored the Terriers' first touchdown with 4:56 left in the first quarter on a 50-yard run that was set up by an interception by Will Bourne. The two-point conversion made it 8-0.
Windsor quarterback Austin Soule then threw his second interception of the day. This time, Bruce Wells swiped the ball and nearly scored before being tackled at the 15-yard line. Hayward ran in a second touchdown, a two-yard run, but the conversion failed to make it 14-0 with 11:15 left in the second quarter.
Hayward scored his third touchdown of the day on a 3-yard-run to make it 20-0 with 5:16 left in the first half, and then the BF defense knocked out Soule late in the second quarter after he injured his knee.
Windsor finally got on the board with a safety with 1:35 left to make it 20-2, but substitute quarterback Ethan Hill got intercepted by BF's Joe Aslin to end the first half.
Any hope of a Windsor comeback was dashed on the opening kickoff of the second half, when Hayward raced untouched for a 92-yard touchdown return. The kick failed, and BF had a seemingly insurmountable 26-2 lead.
Hayward would end the day with 97 yards of rushing on 16 carries. With a total of nearly 1,400 yards for the season, he is a cinch to be on the Vermont Shrine team next summer.
BF quarterback Jeremy Kilburn scored on a six-yard run with 5:50 left in the third to make it 32-2.
Windsor finally got its first touchdown when Kilburn fumbled the ball after a sack, giving Jacks running back Matt Rafus a short field for his 11-yard scoring run to cut the lead to 32-8 with 1:28 remaining.
Kilburn quickly made up for the fumble with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Brendan Hackett with 8:41 left in the game to make it 39-8 BF.
Hackett had three catches on the day for 50 yards, while Kilburn was an efficient 8 for 11 for 70 yards.
Rafus, who scored six touchdowns the previous week against BFA-Fairfax, made the final outcome a little more respectable with a pair of touchdown runs - 59 and 14 yards, respectively, as the game wound down. He finished with 166 yards of rushing, but he only ran for 23 yards on seven carries in the first half as the BF defense completely neutralized him when it mattered.
BF and Windsor made history Saturday, for their game marked the first time that a Vermont state football championship was played at a college facility. Saturday was also the first time that all three high school divisions have played their title games at the same site.
Bellows Falls had 12 seniors on this championship team. They are Hayward, Cam Howe, Brendan Hackett, Chandler Mitchell-Love, Leo Barnett, Henry Empey, Peter Falzo, Eric Laurendeau, Justin Dexter, Jake Stratton, Randy Rutkowski and Coty Mellish.