JV football on a roll, beats Bellevue 16-6

by Dillon Cooper

The JV Pittsford Wildcats’ season started grimly, but a win on the road against rival North Adams-Jerome Rams had sent high hopes and a sigh of relief as the Wildcats were out to once again prevail. This time they would be taking on another new team in their league, the Bellevue Broncos. This game would write a new chapter in a dynamic dual between new foes. This game would be close in the first half, but Pittsford would punch through the barrier and win by a score of 16-6!

The day started off warm and it didn’t seem to get any cooler by the time the head referee blew the opening whistle. Bellevue had won the toss and deferred to the second half. This would mean that Pittsford would receive the ball first. The Wildcats would drive the ball on nothing but straight, hardnosed runs up the gut. Pittsford would drive the rock all the way down to the goal line where they would master a complete a logical plan that had been working since the first play of the drive. P-ford would try and run it around the right end and challenge the defensive end. The ‘Cats would run the play but wouldn’t do anything to impress even the Raiders, even though this play looked very similar because the Wildcats would fumble the ball and thus turning it over to the Broncos! The Broncos wouldn’t drive the ball far down the field, only a few yards, before stalling out. Pittsford would try and return the punt but there was a miscommunication on special teams and instead of the Wildcats returning the punt, the ball took a bad bounce off the turf and hit a blue jersey. Instantly a red and white jersey fell on the ball. Bellevue took possession of the ball at midfield. The ‘Cats were able to move the chains and run hard and block hard on every play but it seemed that whenever they would be close to the end zone, or even the red zone, something would be unexpected and fail the drive itself. “That’s the difference between a good team and a great team. Good teams do their jobs but make mistakes and keep the game close, great teams do their jobs but don’t turn over the ball,” said head coach Mr. Clark. at halftime.

The Wildcats defense had prevailed as it has been know to do in the last few weeks, keeping games close or keeping the game out of reach. Either way, Pittsford’s defense was doing its part. The defense was creating sacks, tackles for-losses, fumbles, tackles, interceptions and creating a lot of injuries to the battered and beaten Broncos. At halftime it seemed like Pittsford had all the momentum, but when you glanced up at the scoreboard it read an eerie double zeros for both schools. Both coaches in the locker room were saying the Wildcats were playing tough and sticking it to them. “The defense is playing really tough, keep doing that,” Mr. Hodos said. “The score should be 14-0 right now,” pointed out Mr. Clark. The offensive line was brainstorming what play would work the most efficiently. One play seemed to work to perfection and never seemed to fail them. “We are going to keep running that same play over and over again until we score!” shouted Mr. Clark. So, at the beginning of the half the Pittsford Wildcats would run that play, a 43 dive right between sophomore leader Dillon Cooper and sophomore tackle Nick Kik. The play kept working and, just like Mr. Clark said earlier, they were going to keep running it till they scored and so they did as they scored 6 on a run by sophomore Kyle Wyatt. “That was a big turning point when me and you (Dillon Cooper) opened up that gap for Kyle to run through,” exclaimed Kik. The Wildcats would score the two-point conversion and be up 8-0 still in the third quarter. Later, P-ford would get the ball back and drive it down for another score to put them up 14-0. “The running game was really working,” sophomore quarterback Austin Billington expressed. The Wildcats would score another two-point conversion to put them up 16-0. A little bit of a cushion that the ‘Cats would soon find out that they would surely need! It was the fourth quarter and the battling Bellevue Broncos had a plan for foiling. They would score with six minutes left in the ball game and failed to convert on a much-needed two-point conversion. The score was 16-6 and that the Pittsford Wildcats would keep it like that in front of their hometown fans.