by Steve Bradley
The Hoosick Falls Panther football team traveled 80 minutes down Route 22 last Friday night to meet the Taconic Hills Titans. Two hours later the Panthers returned after totally dominating the Titans. The Titans only entered the Panthers end of the field twice. The Panthers led 28 – 0 at the end of the first quarter, and 49 – 0 at the half.
Hats Off To The Titans
To the Taconic Hills Titans’ credit, they played the entire game like the score was 0 – 0. They never threw in the towel and were encouraging each other to the very end. Although they were totally outmanned, they never stopped trying. The Titans are 0 – 4 and have been outscored 201 – 38. Yet there they were, fighting for all they were worth. Football is a tough sport. A player practices, including preseason and weekly practice, seven, eight, maybe ten hours for every hour of game time. Football isn’t like most other sports, where you practice before the season starts then fit your practices in between the 2 or 3 or 4 games during the week. In football, the player practices four or five days and plays one. It is not a sport where the player goes out to practice and knocks a ball around the field. During football practice, the player goes out, and he gets knocked around the field. Taconic Hills and other similar teams, Hoosic Valley comes to mind, deserve all the credit in the world for putting in the time and effort and just hoping they will be competitive. They aren’t expecting to win; they are just hoping to be in the game. Hats off to them.
For the Panthers, offense, defense and special teams all scored. David Hardesty set a school record when he returned a pass interception for 102 yards in the third quarter. Hoosick Falls gained over 300 yards total offense compared to less than 50 total yards for Taconic Hills. Hoosick Falls scored two touchdowns on punt returns, one 45-yarder by Colby Davendonis and one 59 yard return by Thomas Peabody.
On offense, Brandon Hodges scored four times, three rushing and one on a seven yard pass. Junior quarterback Garrett Wright scored twice on runs of 19 and 2 yards. Wright also threw for 141 yards. Chad Miner capped the scoring with a one yard, fourth quarter run. Damon Dubois booted 8 out of 10 PATs. Levi Brewster hauled in two passes for 64 yards. On the defensive side of the ball, Davendonis had five tackles with Austin Pitt and Peabody each recording four solo tackles.
The Panthers have outscored opponents 194 – 13 in their first four games and are ranked number one in New York State.
Next Friday evening, October 4, the Panthers will host the 2 – 2 Stillwater Warriors at the HFCS field. Game time is 7 pm.
Other News
The 4 – 0 Chatham Panthers (NY rank 7) defeated the 2 – 2 Voorheesville Blackbirds 61 – 6 last Saturday. Chatham faces 4 – 0 Fonda this week in a big test for each team.