Windsor
Windsor’s Hunter Judd, a transfer from Hartford High, ran for 67 yards on eight carries and a touchdown and ran an interception back for another tally .
Yellowjackets junior quarterback Seth Balch, who was last seen striking out a Randolph batter to give Windsor the Vermont Division III baseball championship three months ago, threw two touchdowns and kicked four extra points.
Trevor Worrall, the pint-sized dynamo who first got everyone’s attention two years ago as a freshman and is now a junior, ran back a kickoff 79 yards for a score and had 65 rushing yards on just four carries, one a 4-yard TD.
Not lost in all the hoopla was Hunter Patenaude, who rushed for one touchdown and caught a pass for another. Dakota Page also caught a pass for a score.
The defense, which limited Poultney-MSJ to one TD, also intercepted three passes.
MSJ, a parochial school with a long history of success in Division I football, had seen its enrollment drop to where there was serious consideration for closing the doors.
Poultney, meanwhile, was continuing to function in Division III, but numbers were dropping as the losses piled up. Hence, the merged team made its first appearance Saturday against a Windsor team that returned 10 starters on each side of the ball that went 5-3 last year.
The new team has not been able to decide on a nickname. On Saturday the visitors had Poultney uniforms on with a “P” on one side of the helmet and an “M” on the other. The teams alternate practice sites (30 minutes apart) and each school will have two home games.
Dave Capman, who has coached Poultney for 38 years, is the head coach. and Phil Hall, the MSJ head coach, runs the defense.
What Capman was looking at in this game was the unknown. “I certainly didn’t expect to get beat by this score,” he said. “It was kind of sight unseen.”
What he was not, was discouraged. “I saw some things I liked and I saw a lot of things we have to work on,” he said. “We’re going to get better.”
It was not a completely negative day for Poultney-MSJ. Clay Drinkwater showed some flashes that he knew what do with the ball when it’s placed at his stomach. And the scoring play was a nifty 25-yard pass from quarterback James Mars to Zac Kasuba.
Windsor started scoring in bunches early. On its first possession, a short Poultney-MSJ punt gave the Jacks the ball on its 49. Three plays later. Judd’s second effort got him into the end zone.
Following a Poultney-MSJ punt, Patenaude went in from 24 yards. Then it was a 26-yard pass from Balch to Patenaude.
Windsor scored the next time it had the ball, but it took 13 plays, with Judd eventually going through a big hole to make it 35-0. In the second half Worrall took the kickoff and went 83 yards for a TD. Judd scored on a 22-yard interception and Windsor closed out the scoring on a Balch-to-Page pass of 25 yards.
“I know its cliche to talk about team effort, but that’s what happened today,” Windsor coach Greg Balch said. “We got a solid effort from a lot of players, but our unsung hero may be Jake Tucker (linebacker-running back). He had a big game today.”
Windsor will face a real test next Saturday at Oxbow. “There’s a lot of tough teams in this division,” Balch said.
Otter Valley is at MSJ on the sane day.