Windsor
Windsor needed only seven seconds to win Saturday’s homecoming game against Mill River, as Hartford transplant Hunter Judd ran 75 yards on the opening kickoff to give the Yellowjackets the first of eight touchdowns in a 57-0 victory over the Minutemen.
The Jacks are 6-0, one of two teams — including Woodstock — to remain undefeated headed into the regular season’s final stretch. The Jacks and Wasps will meet at Woodstock in two weeks.
“I’d like to say it’s preparation and good coaching but I think there’s a fair amount of luck involved,” Windsor head coach Greg Balch said on his team’s fast starts this season. “They’re pretty dinged up right now. We’re dinged up too, but I think they’re in a little bit worse shape than us. I think that contributed.”
Judd scored three times for Windsor in the victory. Junior quarterback Seth Balch added two passing touchdowns to seniors Hunter Patenaude and Zach McLeod.
Windsor took advantage of six first-half turnovers by Mill River — four fumbles, one interception and an onside kick recovery. Minuteman senior quarterback Michael Morgan was responsible for three turnovers.
“They were excellent. They’re one hell of a football team,” Mill River head coach John Wallett said. “We just didn’t play well. We are extremely banged up. Not that that’s an excuse.”
Wallett, whose team lost to Woodstock last week, said he was missing 10 players for Saturday’s game.
Morgan was stripped of the ball just four plays into Mill River’s first offensive drive. Patenaude followed it up three plays later with a 15-yard touchdown run, finding plenty of space on the right side of Mill River’s defensive formation for the easy score.
Mill River’s only real threat was on the following drive, a 15-play, five-minute march down the field that ended with an interception in the end zone by Windsor’s McLeod on first-and-goal with the Minutemen perched on Windsor’s four yard line.
“That was kind of the turning point,” Wallett said.
The Yellowjackets ran 34 offensive plays between Morgan’s interception throw and halftime, scoring 28 points in 16:16. Mill River managed only seven offensive plays, three of which were turnovers.
Windsor played Saturday’s game without star running back Trevor Worrall, who was on crutches on the Yellowjackets sideline with an unknown injury. Worrall has run for 519 yards and nine touchdowns and a pair of 2-point conversions this season for 58 of Windsor’s 240 points this season. Though on Saturday, the absence of Worrall went unnoticed with Judd and Patenaude taking most of the work.
For Balch, however, the key to warding off complacency is to demand perfection. Even after 57 points, he still said there could be improvements made to the offense. Some of the Saturday’s success, he said, was luck.
“We had some plays in the beginning that, quite honestly, could have gone either way,” Balch said.
“Plays where we caught the ball where it was 50-50 who was going to catch it. The interception. It was a great play by Zach (McLeod), but boy, it looked like it could have gone either way.”
With Woodstock still undefeated, following a 50-22 victory over Mount St. Joseph-Poultney on Saturday, the stage is now set for a season-finale showdown between the two undefeated powerhouses in VPA Division III.
Windsor takes on winless Missisquoi next weekend.
“We’re second in the standings,” Judd said. “We took that for granted and wanted to show everyone that we’re No. 1 material.”