We had our first game of the season and faced a tough loss, losing 32-16. The Saint Edwards team had to knock some sense into us after us thinking we could just walk out on the field and dominate. Sixth grader Will Godino said, “I think we did not have enough practice before the game,” and many agree with Will’s statement.  Another few practices in pads before the first game would have been beneficial to our performance. Our offensive line did a great job of protecting Braylon Peterson, our seventh grade quarterback, against St Edward’s skilled defensive line. Nerves and being scared to tackle were two problems that some of our team faced, which ultimately contributed to the loss against Saint Edwards. Seventh grader Luke Sheehan said, “I think we could have tackled and wrapped up better.” Eighth grader Lucas Muzzillo also agreed, saying,“The team could have tackled better because there were a lot of missed tackles and a lot of people were just scared,” Recognizing this problem, the coaches have since added drills in practice to incorporate techniques for hitting and tackling. 

     The Saint Edwards Pirates came out hot, scoring three touchdowns early in the game. The Bucs answered back with a touchdown with Micheal Bogue in eighth grade going untouched. Everyone blocked who they needed to,leading to a great play. Bogue stated the “H back handoff where I scored the touchdown,” as his favorite play of the game. For those readers that don’t know football, an H back handoff is when our offensive player goes in motion and the quarterback hands the ball off to him. A touchdown in his first ever tackle football game will be a core memory for Bogue. The whole team had a great mentality throughout the game. Everyone gave their all on offense, but struggled a little bit on defense. We will learn from our mistakes and hopefully come back next week with a win. 

     Many of the team give the Player of the Game to seventh grader Braylon Peterson. Sheehan said, “I think our quarterback Braylon Peterson [was the MVP]; because he was throwing good balls under pressure,” unfortunately, Peterson broke his wrist in his travel football game and will be out for the rest of the season. He was a huge part of our team. Eighth grader Johnny Ferguson will now be the person who steps up on the team and takes the challenging roles of quarterback. Ferguson said, “I think it is really fun and a step up from wide receiver, and now I know I need to work harder and take responsibility,” after Ferguson was asked if he liked receiver or quarterback more, he replied,“Probably quarterback because there are more responsibilities, I feel like, and just learning and getting better,” finding out he was starting quarterback at practice that week, was not too much of a surprise to him. He stated “I figured I might since I was already playing a little bit,” we are super excited for the rest of the season hoping for a few Buccaneer victories.