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Centaurs
football
ties program
record for wins
It was a great way to go into the bye week for the Woodstock Academy football team.
A 7-6 win in Hartford over the Capital Prep-Achievement First cooperative program Oct. 12 raised the Centaurs record to 4-1 on the season.
They don’t take to the field again until Oct. 26 when they host the Stonington Bears at 1:30 p.m. at the Bentley Athletic Complex.
The Centaurs now get a little break to step back, relax and enjoy what they have already accomplished thus far this season.
“We gave them Monday off and they will also have Friday off. It will be a three-day week. We will focus on lifting, film, conditioning and, hopefully, have a little bit of fun,” said Woodstock Academy coach Sean Saucier.
The fourth win of the season was significant. It equaled the highest total for the program in the win column since it began fielding a varsity football program in 2006.
The Centaurs won four games in 2008 and equaled that in 2016, Saucier’s first year with the program.
A win over the Bears will set a new standard.
“It’s always nice to raise the bar. That’s what we’re really trying to do. We’re trying to raise the expectations as far as what the football program can do. I’m a couple of years into it and it’s really nice to see that bar being raised,” Saucier said.
Woodstock Academy moved the ball well on its first series.
The Centaurs put together a 14-play drive, but it stalled at the Capital Prep 19-yard line.
Saucier called on kicker Aidan Morin to attempt the 36-yard field goal.
The Trailblazers broke through and blocked the attempt.
“I know why that got blocked. We’re going to work on that because it would have been nice to put three on the board in the first drive. But it was a little bit of a chess match. We had to earn every yard, so did they. You could kind of feel the game going that way,” Saucier said.
The Trailblazers recovered the blocked field goal at their own 42-yard line and could only go 7 yards, turning the ball over just inside midfield.
The Centaurs had a punt blocked on their next possession which gave Capital Prep the ball back on their own 48.
A 23-yard run by the Blazers’ Makhi Buckly moved the ball to the 30-yard line of the Centaurs.
But the Woodstock Academy defense was up to the task. After a 4-yard run by Capital Prep, a sack and a tackle behind the line of scrimmage resulted in 11 yards of losses.
Capital Prep turned over the ball on downs at the Woodstock 37-yard line.
“The defense was just amazing,” Saucier said. “The job that (defensive coordinator) Jesse Bousquet has done with game planning, watching film, understanding what the opponent does, what their strengths are and trying to take them away and then have the kids execute it, has been fantastic.”
The Centaurs did bend a bit when the Blazers drove to the Woodstock Academy 37 midway through the second quarter but a false start and a Trey Ayotte sack for the Centaurs gave Woodstock Academy the ball back on the Capital Prep 39.
The Centaurs got as far as the 23 before running out of downs.
Three straight incomplete passes giving the ball back to their opponents and guaranteeing a scoreless first half.
Capital Prep and Woodstock Academy exchanged punts to open the second half but the Centaurs again had their punt attempt blocked for a second time.
“They overloaded an edge and came hard,” Saucier said. “We have to work on the way we punt the ball, got to get it off a little quicker. Aidan is a little bit of a rugby-style kicker. It takes a little bit longer.”
Capital Prep could only move it as far as the Woodstock Academy 35.
When the Centaurs got the ball back, running back Ian Welz (20 carries, 33 yards) carried the ball twice but couldn’t get much beyond the line of scrimmage.
An offside call moved the ball up five yards to the Centaurs 40.
Offensive coordinator Connor Elliott made a quick adjustment on a route for senior receiver Nick Bedard.
Sophomore quarterback Ethan Davis (8-for-17, 114 yards passing) responded to the move.
He looked over the middle and spotted Bedard (6 catches, 90 yards) just beyond the Capital Prep safety. Bedard caught Davis’ pass in stride.
It was a good thing that he didn’t have to slow down because he barely won the foot race to the end zone to complete the 60-yard touchdown play.
“When we scored, you got the feeling that even though we knew it may not be enough, we put them on the defensive with that punch down,” Saucier said.
Capital Prep, on its next possession, put together an 11-play drive of its own. It ended in the end zone.
Solomon Barlow (9-for-23, 118 yards), like Davis, looked down the middle and found Bryce Williams open.
Unlike the Woodstock Academy touchdown, this one only had to go 12 yards.
But the Trailblazers were denied the lead when Buckly was stopped short of the goal line trying to run in the two-point conversion.
“(Lineman) Gavin Lanning probably had the game of his career on both sides of the ball and he was involved in that stop. They tried to go up the middle and there was nowhere for the kid to go,” Saucier said. “They were big but Gavin was able to clog up the middle.”
What followed was best described by Saucier as “hectic.”
His Centaurs were forced to punt but Capital Prep failed to move the ball and tried for a first down on a 4th-and-10 from their own 20.
Barlow’s pass fell incomplete.
The Centaurs got a quick first down on runs by Welz and Davis that got them down to the Trailblazers’ 10.
But three more rushes resulted in a net gain of a yard and an incomplete pass gave Capital Prep the ball back on their own 9-yard line.
“For the second time this season, we were on defense in the final minute trying to stop a last drive by our opponent,” Saucier said.
It was made a little more stressful by the lack of a clock.
“The scoreboard wasn’t working. I knew there was 1 minute, 20 seconds left at one point in that drive and they were still on their side of the field and they never got out of bounds and didn’t have any timeouts. I think the last three plays, I knew time was about to expire,” Saucier said.
Unfortunately, he had no idea of when as the official keeping the time was on the other side of the field.
The Blazers threw three incomplete passes but a 15-yard penalty against the Centaurs extended their drive. Barlow then completed three straight passes of 15, 17 and 10 yards to get to the Centaurs 34, but Capital Prep ran out of time.
“I’m not really sure if I thought about being 4-1 this early. It’s certainly nice going into the bye week. It’s always nice to enter a bye week off of a win that way you’re not contemplating a loss for two weeks. I’m happy about that,” Saucier said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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