By Blake Santana
For the second consecutive year, the Hudson-Litchfield Bears hosted the annual Veterans/Gavin Huntoon Bowl Games at Hudson Memorial School on Sunday, Nov. 12. A total of eight games were played throughout the morning.
On what turned out to be a great day for football, despite the chilly start, the 6U, 8U, 9U, 10U, 11U, 12U, and 13U teams split their squads and played either 5-on-5 or 7-on-7 flag football, depending on the number of players available, as well as a group of about 20 coaches who put on a spectacle during the final, 1 p.m. window.
During the event, there was not only excellent flag football being played, but the cheerleaders from all age groups were combining to practice their routines, as well as a pair of 50/50 raffles, concessions, and a raffle to determine who won the custom pair of Air Jordans, which were donated by Kelly Huntoon, who is the mother of the late Gavin Huntoon, the namesake of Sunday’s fundraiser. All of it culminated with the fan-favorite coach pie in the face.
The day began at 9 a.m. with the 6U and 8U bowls. Those games resembled more of a true football feel, minus the tackling aspect. Everyone played the whole time. 20-minute halves and a five-minute break for halftime. Nobody was keeping track of score, but both games seemed pretty evenly matched, and everyone enjoyed themselves, despite the slick conditions from the frost on the grass surface.
After a brief break to get the teams off the fields and the new groups on, the 9U and 10U teams kicked off at just a couple of minutes past 10:15 a.m., and those games were equally fun for the players, though much higher scoring. Despite the fact that none of the games were officially scored, there is no doubt that the 9s and 10s scored far more than the 6U and 8U teams, which is to be expected, but there was a very high amount of scoring for such short spans of time, especially with the clock constantly winding, rather than stopping frequently as we normally see in football.
Once that window wrapped up, there was a pause in the football action to honor any veterans that were in attendance. Some nice words were said and the crowd gave a big hand in honor of those who have served our nation in the military.
The afternoon portion of games kicked off just a few minutes before the 12 o’clock hour as field 1 was moved from directly next to field two, down the hill and between the HMS baseball and softball fields. These games were the 11U and 12U games, of which both were extremely exciting. While 12U did not keep any sort of official score, 11U unofficially ended at 35-28 in favor of the silver team. Teams in the age groups 9U and up were divided into silver and navy teams, with the silver team being designated as away and navy being the home team.
Once we reached the final window of games, it was time for the 13U team to take to field 2 with the highly anticipated Coaches’ Bowl taking place over on field 1. The 13U game was highly competitive with everyone playing hard and enjoying their 40 minutes on the field, while also taking a few peeks down at the coaches from the younger levels who were putting on a show down the hill.
The coaches battled throughout their game, firing touchdown after touchdown and matching scores the whole way, mixing in a few stops into the shootout. For the coaches, quarterbacks, Billy Burrows IV, Chris Reilly, and Ethan Dudley, were toying with defenses the entire game, firing deep pass after deep pass and really showing off their arm strengths. The most impressive part of this one though, had to be the fact that not a single coach wound up getting injured enough to show any sort of pain, even while a lot of them hit the ground trying to catch the football.
When all of the football festivities were wrapped up, it was time to pick who would get the pie to the face. This was determined by which coach received the most donations in his name, and this was the biggest blowout of the night. Earning $172, 13U head coach, Richie Sperazzo, took home the honor, as he beat out the entire rest of the field $172-$72. All-in-all, between this, the 50/50 raffles, and the Air Jordans raffle, the Bears raised well over $600 on Sunday afternoon.