Sports

Junior Varsity Rocks roll to undefeated season

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The East Rockaway Junior/Senior High School football program has plenty to celebrate, as it’s Junior Varsity team finished their season with a perfect 8-0 record with an 8-6 win over West Hempstead on Nov. 1

“As the clock ticked away the final seconds everyone finally was able to celebrate what we accomplished,” said co-captain Tom Rogers, a tenth grader. “I was filled with so many emotions when we finally finished the season. I was happy, I relieved, it was great.”

The team, led by first year head coach Tom Dwyer, almost never had a chance to win a single game, however. At the team’s initial meetings in June and throughout the summer, the team was looking thin.

“Our first meetings were definitely a little scary,” said fellow co-captain and tenth grader James Tierney. “We had a meeting in June on the last day of school in order to get an idea of who would be on the team. Not a single incoming freshman came to the meeting and there were only a handful of returning tenth grade players in the room. We definitely did not have enough to fill a roster and Coach told us he wasn’t sure if we would be able to have a season. Even for a few more meetings after that we really weren’t sure if we would have enough players to build a full roster.”

Dwyer called on the players in the room to step up and recruit players to make sure a JV team could play. Over the course of two weeks, Rogers, Tierney and other players on the team talked to friends, classmates, anyone who might be able to bring the team’s roster size up.

“Tom and I, the captains, spent a lot of time talking to anyone we could trying to make sure we had a team,” Tierney said. “By the first practice we had exactly enough players to field the team.”

After the team held that first practice, Tierney said there was something special in the air.

“After we spent so much time recruiting players, at first I was just excited that we would be able to have a season,” Tierney said, “but after the first practice, things changed. I could tell we really had a chance to do something special. We were all really excited to have the chance to play together and really excited to have a chance to play under coach Dwyer.”

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