JV Football Edges Andover

Big Red’s JV Football team closed the 2013 season on an incredibly strong note, dominating Andover to continue their four game winning streak and bring their final record to 5-2.Beginning the season as a relatively young team, with over half of its players as preps, Big Red struggled to find its footing in their season opener against EHS. However the team has been able to grow and build character over these past few months, and upon their second match up against Exeter High School, were able to conclusively defeat the originally tough opponent. “This group has done a great job of finding their own identity, and I think that the team’s success against EHS was especially telling of the team’s improvement,” Coach Matthew Adams said.From here, Big Red triumphed in the majority of their games, defeating, in addition to EHS, Governers, Cushing, Hyde, and finally, Andover. The team only lost once more throughout the course of the season against the always strong Tilton. With a strong running game up the middle of the field, and a great amount of speed coming around the inside, Big Red was able to dominate their league this season.In taking on our rivals this past Wednesday, the team went into the match with high spirits and high hopes against an evenly matched Andover who, at the time, had the same record as Exeter. “We came out really hyped and excited for the Andover game, because its almost like our championship,” lower Jacob Pressman said.Big Red played with ferocity in the first and second quarter, scoring two touchdowns while keeping Blue away from its endzone, leaving the halftime score at 14-0. However, Blue scored at the beginning of the third quarter, bringing the score to 14-6. Exeter was able to hold off Andover until the final moments of the fourth quarter, when Big Blue unexpectedly drove down the entire field, narrowly sneaking past Big Red until they were stopped at the two yard line.“Our strength is our perseverance,” Pressman said. “Even though we’re a young team that makes some mistakes, we always play really hard until the final whistle. In this Andover game, it came down to the last five seconds, but we were resilient and came out on top with a final score of 14-6.”“We were victorious,” upper Talla Babou said, “ and we were able to close out the season on a four game winning streak.”