Football Struggles in Opening Scrimmages
Coming off a 0-6 loss in last week’s scrimmage against Noble & Greenough School, the varsity football team scrimmaged Proctor Academy last Saturday. The game consisted of 10 plays on offense and 10 plays on defense, followed by two quarters of football. While the team fell 0-12, they hoped to learn from the loss before their season-opening game against Worcester this weekend.
Exeter started strong with their defense, keeping pace with the Proctor players and preventing them from scoring. On Exeter’s first drive, the offense, led by quarterback and senior Jake Smith, moved the ball, but was unable to score.
The game remained scoreless until two minutes left in the first quarter, when Proctor Academy scored a touchdown. Down 0-6 at the start of the second half, Exeter’s offense began to struggle, finding difficulty in moving the ball forward and grabbing first downs. As the game clock wound down, Proctor scored one more touchdown towards the end of the game, while still managing to shut out Exeter.
“We’ll be much more prepared.”
Several of Big Red’s players such as lower Michael Indelicarto felt the team “could have done better,” but pointed out that several of his teammates were injured and should be returning in time for next week. Prep Ethan Rosenthal also mentioned that he thought the team “could have played and executed better.”
The football team is heading into this week with plans to review their past scrimmages and train hard before facing Worcester at 6 p.m. on Saturday. In Exeter’s first game last year, the team played a close match against Worcester, eventually falling 34-42. A win on the road against Worcester could give the team the momentum they need heading into the rest of the season. The last time Exeter beat Worcester was 2013, which was also the the last time the varsity team had a winning season.
Smith is hopeful going into preparation this week for Worcester. Smith said that he expects the team to do well and added, “We’ll be much more prepared.”