-It was homecoming weekend at Brattleboro Union High School, and dozens of alumni representing seven decades of BUHS football gathered at Natowich Field on Oct. 4 for a pregame cookout, lots of storytelling and memory sharing, and a chance to take a bow on the field before the Bears took on the Keene Blackbirds in a gridiron rivalry that dates back to 1891.
Unfortunately, it was the Blackbirds that did the celebrating as they again hoisted the Darrell Sawyer-Keene High School Booster Trophy after a 35-0 win over the Bears.
Buoyed by the pre-game festivities, Brattleboro's offense looked good in its first series of the game, but couldn't score, and the Bears' defense also seemed to be locked in during the early going.
"I think it's an awesome experience," said Brattleboro head coach Chad Pacheco of the alumni involvement in the game that included their attendance at the coach's pregame pep talk to his team. "I think it gave them a little more juice. We started out like a house afire."
However, it only took one big play to squash those positive vibes. Blackbirds senior running back Sawyer Lepple zipped down the far sideline 75 yards for a touchdown. The extra point was blocked, but Keene had a 6-0 lead with 3:21 left in the first quarter.
The Bears did not have an answer for Lepple, who had a career night with 283 yards - 221 in the first half alone - on 20 carries before he had to leave the game with a knee injury late in the third quarter.
But it wasn't just Lepple. Fellow senior running backs Payton Goswell (64 yards) and Aiden Ioannou (26 yards) also contributed to a powerful Keene running attack to give the Blackbirds a 20-0 lead at halftime. The trio helped the Blackbirds pile up a total of 370 yards rushing against the Bears' defense.
"That's been the story of our season," said Pacheco. "We play one quarter great, and then we let up and lose our concentration."
Ioannou got Keene's second touchdown with a 13-yard run with 8:47 left in the second quarter. Goswell then scored on a 10-yard run with Lepple running in the two-point conversion with 4:01 remaining. The Blackbirds were driving for a fourth touchdown before halftime, but were stopped as the first half ended.
Pacheco said he told his players at halftime that they still had a chance to get back into the game in the second half. The Blackbirds made sure that wasn't going to happen. They got the ball to start the third quarter and marched up the field. A 22-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Kasen Abbott to tight end Miles Derosiers upped the Keene lead to 27-0 with 8:42 left in the third quarter. Abbott connected on seven of his 14 passes in the game for 78 yards.
After Lepple exited the game, the Blackbirds got their final touchdown on a 2-yard run by Goswell. He also ran in the two-point conversion to make it 35-0 with 11:11 left in the game. That kicked in the mercy rule as the remainder of the game was played with a running clock.
Brattleboro had a best sequence on offense late in the game as quarterback Sean Cozza connected with Jack Cady for a 43-yard reception, then hit tight end Hudson Smith for a 37-yard reception that put the ball on the Keene 3-yard line. The Blackbirds put up a successful goal line stand as they stopped four straight runs into the line by the Bears to preserve their shut out and secure the Sawyer Trophy for the second straight year.
Keene improved to 3-2 and now holds a 43-25-2 lead in this long-running rivalry series that had been dormant since 2010 until it was revived last season. Brattleboro, now 0-6, plays a Thursday night road game on Oct. 10 against the 5-1 Burlington-South Burlington Seawolves.
Hurricanes snap BF win streak
• Bellows Falls saw its four-game winning streak end at the hands of the Hartford Hurricanes, 34-14, on Oct. 3 in White River Junction.
Hartford wasted no time taking control of this game as Austin St. Peter ran for a 30-yard touchdown and quarterback Owen Mock scored on a 25-yard run in the first quarter. Mock then threw touchdown passes to Rex Baning and Tyler Piper for a 28-0 lead by halftime.
Bellows Falls was held scoreless until the fourth quarter when quarterback Eli Allbee ran for a pair of touchdowns. Nick Daniels then scored Hartford's final touchdown with a 60-yard run to end the proceedings.
Daniels finished the game with 179 yards on 18 carries, while St. Peter rushed for 84 yards on 11 carries. Carson Clark was BF's leading rusher with 66 yards in 14 carries.
Bellows Falls, now 4-2, will be at Brown Field in Springfield this Friday night to face the Cosmos in the annual game for "The Trophy" in the long-running rivalry series that began in 1894. BF holds a 61-45-2 record in the series. It's been a one-sided rivalry in recent years, as Springfield hasn't beaten the Terriers since 2009.
BF field hockey stays unbeaten
• Bellows Falls stayed unbeaten with a 5-0 road win over the Windsor Yellowjackets on Oct. 3. The Terriers started out slowly as Windsor had five shots on goal and three penalty corners in the first quarter. BF goalie Brook Parker turned aside the early pressure by the Yellowjackets and, after that, it was all BF.
Emma Bazin scored a pair of second quarter goals to give the Terriers a 2-0 lead at halftime. In the third quarter, Haven Harty scored off an assist from Avery Maxfield. Then, in the final quarter, Maxfield scored off a Bazin feed and Veronica Moore got the final tally.
The Terriers improved to 9-0-1 with the victory. Earlier in the week, on Sept. 30, BF traveled to Manchester to take on Burr & Burton and won, 5-1.
Moore had a pair of early goals, one of them assisted by Bazin. The Terriers took a 3-0 lead as Bazin scored off a Harty penalty corner, but Burr & Burton's Piper Morgan answered with a goal off a Romi Buckley penalty corner to cut the lead to 3-1 at end of the first quarter.
BF then clamped down on defense and Maxfield would score in the second and fourth quarters with Gracie McGinnis assisting on both goals. The Terriers had a 13-3 edge in penalty corners, and Parker had to make but two saves in goal to earn the win.
Cross-country
• The Brattleboro boys have been on a roll of late, finishing second to Burr & Burton in the Bears' only home meet of the season on Sept. 24 at Fort Dummer State Park, and taking first place in an Oct. 1 meet in Bellows Falls.
Brattleboro swept the top 10 spots in the BF meet, besting Springfield with a perfect score of 15 points to the Cosmos' 45 points. They were the only two schools in the meet with enough boys to compile a team score.
Nico Conathan-Leach led the Bears with a first place time of 17 minutes, 22 seconds. Willow Sharma was second in 19:07, followed by Galen Fogarty (19:43), Malo Renault (19:59) and Jonas Ackerman-Hovis (20:05). This quintet has been among the best runners in the Southern Vermont League this season.
Bellows Falls' lone male runner, Jacob Kissell, finished 17th in 23:49.
The Terriers won the girls' meet with a score of 15 points as the only school that had enough runners for a team score. BF's Desi Broadley won the race in 19:59, more than 8 minutes ahead of Springfield's Erica Knudsen (28:27) who finished second.
The rest of the BF top five included Gillian Robb (30:10), Chloe Benson (31:10), Beatrix Robb (32:13), and Kendall Robb (32:15). Brattleboro's top runner was Elodie Hoskins, finishing in seventh in 33:16.
In the meet at Fort Dummer, the Brattleboro boys had a team score of 29, just one point behind first place winner Burr & Burton. Springfield was third with 35 points.
Conathan-Leach won the race, setting a personal record with a time of 17:18, which also shattered the course record of 18:08 that he set last year. Sharma finished second overall with a time of 18:49, and Fogarty finished sixth overall in 19:41.
The Bears also had two personal best times in the girls' race as Hoskins finished 16th and Luca Barkow finished 17th.
Boys' soccer
• Spencer Claussen had a pair of goals and Cody Hescock also scored as Leland & Gray lost a highly competitive 5-3 road game to Randolph on Sept. 30.
The Rebels twice tied the game on Claussen's tallies, but Randolph broke a 2-2 tie with a goal from Chase Gardner with 26:17 left in the second half. Antonio Reyes then scored a pair of goals to put the game out of reach for the Rebels.
On Oct. 4, the Rebels hosted Green Mountain, who rolled to a 7-1 win. Tanner Swisher led the scoring for GM with two goals. Also scoring were Andrei Solzhenitsyn, Evan Kirdzik, Joa Gibson, Raz Backlund and Colin Rose. Backlund also had three assists. The Rebels ended the week at 1-9-1.
• Brattleboro rallied from a 2-1 halftime deficit with two goals in the second half to beat Rutland, 6-3, on Oct. 5 at Natowich Field. The Bears improved their record to 6-3.
• Twin Valley clobbered Rivendell, 9-1, on Sept. 30 at Hayford Field in Wilmington. Brayden Brown had two goals and three assists to lead the Wildcats. Steve Oyer and Alex Sullivan each added two goals, Carson McHale had a goal and two assists, and Zack Mercier got his first varsity goal.
• Springfield dominated from start to finish in a 9-2 win on Oct. 1 over visiting Bellows Falls. Kamden Roy and Clayton Rousse each had two goals for the Cosmos, while Justin Roy, Cooper Palmer, Mateo Fuentes, Rowan Pilapil and Ryan Gould had a goal apiece. Oliver Kelley had three assists and Fuentes had two assists, while Pilapil and Kamden Roy had one assist. BF ended the week with a 0-9 record.
Girls' soccer
• Brattleboro improved to 5-5 on the season with a 4-0 win over Green Mountain on Oct. 5 at Natowich Field.
• Twin Valley lost a 2-0 road game to the Proctor Phantoms on Oct. 1. Ainsley Carr and Emma Palmer were the Phantoms' goal scorers. The Wildcats then shut out visiting Long Trail School, 1-0, on Oct. 3 to improve their record to 4-6.
• Leland & Gray defeated Bellows Falls, 4-1, in Townshend on Oct. 5. The Rebels' record improved to 5-3-1 with the win, while the Terriers fell to 2-8.
Randolph T. Holhut, deputy editor of this newspaper, has written this column since 2010 and has covered sports in Windham County since the 1980s. Readers can send him sports information at [email protected].
This Sports column by Randolph T. Holhut was written for The Commons.