Sanborn set to tackle second season
By Roger Brown
nhfootballreport.com
Sanborn Regional High School coach Vincent Pettis will tell you that he and his team accomplished a lot last season. He'll also tell you that there's even more work to do in 2007.
Sanborn eliminated football in 1975, but the sport was reinstated last year. The Indians competed as a junior varsity team last season, and will do the same this year. Sanborn athletic director Vicky Parady-Guay said the plan is to field a varsity team in 2008.
"It was a good year," Pettis said when asked about last season. "I think 52 players is what we finished with. I wanted to install our base offense and base defense, and I thought we got that done. I would say it was a very successful start, but there's a lot of learning to be done."
Pettis said he's hoping to have a junior varsity and a freshman team this year.
"It was really a great time to add this program because we had quite a few kids who had played (youth) football," Parady-Guay said. "We're anticipating 60 to 70 kids. Those are good numbers for two teams. A lot of the kids have been involved in local Pop Warner programs."
There was even talk of playing a Thanksgiving Day game against Epping this season, but Parady-Guay called that idea far-fetched.
"We play a JV schedule and that season ends Nov. 5," she said. "It would be hard to make them wait that long. It's really not feasible this year."
Pettis, who lives in Haverhill, Mass., was a varsity assistant at Haverhill High School before he took over the Sanborn program. He had also coached freshman football at Haverhill.
"It was a chance to take a group of kids with a clean slate and hopefully get those kids hooked on football," Pettis said. "It's been challenging, but fun."
Parady-Guay said Sanborn will compete in either Division IV or Division V next season. All NHIAA teams can begin practicing for the 2007 season on Aug. 8.
"The majority of our kids have played some (high school) ball," Pettis said. "We'll have 50 kids who know what a practice is like. We definitely need to build on what we did last year. We need to build on that to get ready for our big year."
