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It's that time of year again. The days are getting shorter; the nights getting cooler; fog coats the mountain valley's in the early morning hours; and if you're close to a local high school, you've probably heard the sound of plastic colliding and whistles blowing. The sounds of local high school football teams hard at work preparing for the opening of the 2010 football season.
The Falcons once again have high hopes for another successful season after suffering a tough 7-0 loss to Clarion in the D9 Class A Championship game last year.
This year's squad is lead by an experienced group of seniors, juniors and sophomores. Last season we had three freshmen, four sophomores and eight juniors letter. That provides us a good base for building this year's team.
One of the biggest changes this year is first year head coach Chris Fink has stepped in to replace Brendan Hathaway. Coach Fink played back in the late 80's and early 90's for Coach Simcoe and helped coach in the mid to late 90's under Coach Simcoe before taking over as the boys basketball coach.
Coach Fink has already showed his enthusiasm and competiveness in practice and our first scrimmage against Curwensville last Saturday. The rest of last year's coaching staff returns to assist Coach Fink and help him get his feet wet in his new role.
One of the biggest concerns for any team every year is of course injuries. This year's team is rather small with only 32 full time players. The depth of our team is really thin this year especially with the linemen. We've converted two of last year's fullbacks to tackles this year; Creighton Hayes and Skyler Blumer have made the sacrifice to move down into the trenches for the betterment of the team. Thus far they are looking strong in their new roles. Helping Hayes and Blumer solidify the front line will be senior Taylor Hathaway, junior Zach Cumby and sophomore center, Ryan Counts.
The backfield is filled with talent. Junior quarterback Tim McCusker will do the signal calling again this year. Senior running back Kevin Wolfinger will be joined in the backfield by two sophomore backs that saw a fair amount of time last year as freshmen, Mitch Freeman and Caden Whitman. They will be joined by senior Kory Majot who looks to see his first significant time at the varsity level.
When McCusker does drop back to pass, he'll be looking to split ends, senior Josh Bucheit along with juniors Jason Gibson and Alex Hutcheson. Junior Garrett Russell and sophomore John Rigas could also fight for time out at split end by the end of the season.
Defensively this year the Falcons will look to continue with the "bend don't break" philosophy. Only one linebacker from last year has returned to that position and that is Hayes. Last year he was mostly an outside backer while this year he'll be looking to sure up the middle of the defense with Cumby and Hathaway who will be working at the defensive guards. Blumer will be returning to the defensive end position that he played last season while Freeman will move from outside backer up to the line at the other defensive end position with Bucheit. We're looking for Gibson to move up from his defensive back position and to play outside backer with Counts on the other side of Hayes. In the secondary, Wolfinger, McCusker and Whitman all return to their positions with Majot and Furman working at the other corner back position.
With two-a-days officially over and one scrimmage left before we start preparing for Johnsonburg in the first regular season game, we're proud of how hard the kids have worked so far this season. If they continue to work hard, trust each other and come together as a unit, I see good things for us again this season.
We hope to see you at the games and hear you cheering on these young men as they look to continue the winning tradition here in Coudersport.
On a side note, if you are unable to make a game this year, Black Forest Broadcasting will once again be broadcasting the games live on their web site or you can log on to coudyfootball.com and follow the action by clicking on the link to the left.
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