Varsity Insider: Souhegan braces for Laconia
Editor's Note: Sean Cultrera is a senior at Souhegan High School and a two-way tackle on the SHS football team. His Varsity Insider column will appear each week throughout the season.
The Souhegan High School football team has been getting ready diligently all week long for our Week 3 battle with Division IV power Laconia. After securing last week's win at Hollis/Brookline with an incredible first half of football, we are coming in confident for the Sachems, but know it will not be easy.
Last year was the first year of Division III/Division IV "crossover" games in New Hampshire. Thanks to the restructuring of the leagues into six divisions from five, all teams lost a game in their schedules. In order to make up for this, these crossover games were created to fill in that empty week and create some intrigue.
After wanting to play our northern rival Plymouth in our crossover but being turned down, our coaches decided that we'd still like to play a challenging game, so the call to Laconia was made.
The year before Laconia was the Division IV state champion and had an undefeated season doing it. It was clear to everyone that they were a very good football team. However, what really made this matchup interesting was the fact that the Sabers and Sachems used to play in the same division, and, in a way, had their own rivalry in earlier years.
Wanting to renew the rivalry, Laconia accepted a two-year contract and the first game of the series was to be played at Laconia.
We knew we were probably in for a four-quarter game against the Sachems on our bus ride north last year, but we didn't know just how big of a dog fight it would turn out to be!
Aided by three first-quarter turnovers deep in our own territory, Laconia got the quick 10-0 jump on us. Everyone at Souhegan, including the rowdy contingent of students that made the trip was stunned by this turn of events. However, nobody gave up and by halftime Souhegan had closed the gap to 10-7. In the locker room we talked the first half over calmly and the team came out self-motivated to not get embarrassed so early in the season. After another tough half of football we had earned our 26-17 victory.
This was, at least in my opinion, our toughest game last year, and could be again this year.
We are coming out of this game motivated to not get embarrassed at "our house." We will do everything in our power within the rules of the game to win and will not make excuses. This is what high school football is all about. Matchups like this where to the casual observer it may not seem like an important game are always tricky, but none of the seniors want a single blemish on our senior year.
So, the Sabers of Souhegan will come out for a dog fight Friday night knowing full well that anything less than our best is unacceptable for ourselves, our team, our school, and most importantly our town.
