Redhawks Claw Cougars

By Joe Cribari

The CVU Redhawks varsity football team showed heart Saturday with a decisive 21-3 win over the Mount Mansfield Union (“MMU”) Cougars. Emotion spilled from the playing field and permeated the crowd as J.P. Benoit scored three touchdowns on the day.

Benoit, wearing #17 instead of his usual #21, was unstoppable – pushing through, fighting, even tripping and lunging forward for 1, 3, 5 or more extra yards as he dragged the numerous MMU tacklers trying to take him down. He rushed 18 times for 115 yards and caught 2 passes for another 16.

“I’m wearing #17 in honor of my grandmother who just passed away,” J.P. said after the game. “That was her softball number – I have the sticker on my helmet too.”

JV-A Head Coach Rahn Fleming summed it up with, “The Redhawks team cheer is ‘Family’ . . . . when we yelled ‘FAMILY’ today, we included J.P’s Grandma.”

“I needed that,” Benoit said with a sigh. “My grandmother was the 12th person out there blocking today; everyone played better. The offensive line – it was one of the best games they’ve played – they made the blocks, made the holes,” Benoit said, and proceeded to give praise to every man on that line by name.

“[Alec] Distler, [Quinn] Kropf, Mike [Cribari], [Crawford] Morris, and especially Dylan Raymond had a great game,” he said. “Also, Tyler [Barnes], [Ryan] Beaudry and [Eric] Palmer,” J.P. said, adding some defensive names to his list of players stepping it up a notch in this game.

Both teams played a defensive game. Despite CVU’s solid offensive line, the Cougars managed a couple of quarterback sacks and blocked a field goal attempt – they hit hard and tackled without mercy.

CVU’s entire defense was intimidating. Their 2 official sacks by Dale Conger and Taylor Gingras (add a very close call by Barnes) were only part of the story as these Redhawk defenders harried and hassled the Cougars’ offense all afternoon, shutting down their passing game and 3 times pushing them back “into the next zip code” in Coach Rahn’s words. Drew Nick had 8 tackles and 2 assists. There were some great tackles by Ian Solomon, Derek Goodwin and Ryan Nakhleh as well.

“The tackling was voracious; we were hitting hard, wrapping up. ‘Intense’ is the word that comes to mind,” Coach Fleming said. “We saw 3, 4, 5, 6 guys coming in [tackling] on every play – a lot of red. Everyone on the team played hard today,” he said.

Benoit returned a punt 31 yards in the closing moments of the 1st quarter for the game’s first score. J.P. also had a hard fought 3-yard rushing touchdown in the 2nd quarter. His reception of Konnor Fleming’s pass over the middle from the 10 late in the game added a 3rd score for J.P. Tucker Kohlasch provided the balance of the Redhawks points with 3 point-after-touchdown kicks in a stiff wind.

A nice 33-yard reception by Matt Bauer helped set up Benoit’s rushing score. Gingras had 4 receptions for 34 yards.

The Cougar’s lone score was a 25-yard field goal kicked by Paolo Rossi late in the 2nd quarter.

The Redhawks are clearly building and improving each week – and the growing ranks of Redhawks fans were out in force once again doing their part. On this warm afternoon, cheering was heard and emotion was felt from students, parents and townspeople in the bleachers, at the fence all around and on the hill behind the east goal post. The Redhawks and their fans next travel to South Burlington to face the Rice Memorial High School Green Knights on Saturday October 2, 2010 at 1:00 P.M. CVU beat Rice last year 33-8. The Knights, however, are charging strong this season with a 4-0 record including a huge win over Burlington.