Progress, promise – and plenty of work to do.
All that and more was evident in ConVal’s football team as they opened the 2022 NHIAA Division III season with a 36-21 loss to visiting Kearsarge in Peterborough Friday night.
“I was proud of them,” said first-year head coach Matt Harris after the game. “They flew around and played three solid quarters. There was a lot of progress I saw there.”
Senior quarterback Gabriel Fret ran the offense efficiently, rushing 11 times for 96 yards and two touchdowns. Fret, along with many of his teammates and opponents, suffered from leg cramps throughout the game; despite the cool evening, so many players went down with cramps that the game lasted over three hours.
“They’re a young grou p ,” Harris said. “They still don’t know how to prepare for a varsity game. They don’t know about all the rigors.”
Fret’s limited mobility took the bootleg action out of Harris’s offense, but the Cougars could still move the ball. ConVal opened the second half with their “rhino package,” moving linemen Bishop Benham and Francisco Jaimes into the back field ahead of RBs Eric McGrath (nine rushes, 37 yards) and Sam Davis (five rushes, 30 yards), and pounded their way to the end zone for a Fret touchdown that had ConVal up 21-16.
Kearsarge had an answer, however, in the form of senior John Fraioli, one of the division’s best running backs. Fraioli’s hard-driving approach wore down the Cougar front; sophomore Damon Dawson ran one in on a change-of-pace to give Kearsarge the lead, and then Fraioli caught one touchdown and ran for another to put the visitors way ahead.
“He’s a heck of a back,” Harris said. “When he runs, he does not stop his feet. His feet do not stop…Definitely one of the best backs that we’ll see in Division III – he’s a heck of a ballplayer on both sides of the ball.”
ConVal fullback Jayden Hendrickson was responsible for the other Cougar TD, as ConVal found success running the ball up the middle behind Benham, Jaimes, James Healey and JJ Way.
Kendrick Edwards (three receptions, 46 yards) was bottled up defensively by Fraioli, but looked explosive; the converted soccer player was successful on all three ConVal extra points.
Jaimes led ConVal with 12 tackles; Fret had nine; Benham and Caleb Cloutier had seven each and Dylan Farrell had five stops and recovered a fumble.
“I know they’re frustrated right now,” Harris said. “It’s pretty quiet, but I can tell you Monday, they’re gonna come back ready to work, and that’ll be a good thing about this group.”
ConVal (0-1) is at Epping Saturday.