The Winnisquam football team ended last year with a championship in hand, standing tall after a narrow win over rival Franklin in the title game capped off a perfect 9-0 season as the Bears ran the table in Division IV.
Head coach Pat Riberdy was emotional in his postgame speech that night, sophomore quarterback Philip Nichols was on top of the world after converting a late fourth-and-14 for a touchdown to complete the comeback and the Bears felt like they had reached the mountain’s peak.
Between then and now, there’s been a few changes in Tilton: Longtime assistant Derek Hunt took over as head coach after Riberdy stepped down during the offseason, new players have shuffled in to replace those graduated seniors and small tweaks have been made to a system that’s worked wonders for years.
Through it all, the results have remained the same on the field as the Bears (3-0) gear up for an early season showdown at Raymond (3-0) on Friday night.
“They were together for so many years,” junior quarterback Nichols said of Riberdy and Hunt. “It’s all pretty much the same. Coach (Hunt) knows Pat was a good coach and he just wants to keep the program rolling like Riberdy did.”
Hunt and Riberdy had worked side-by-side at the varsity, JV and youth levels in Tilton for the better part of 14 years. When Riberdy made the decision to walk away, he recommended Hunt as his replacement and the former assistant has made a seamless transition.
“Working with him and doing the things I’ve been doing for 12-plus years, just watching how he did things, it had me very prepared I think,” Hunt said. “Me and him were always on the same page and I learned a lot from him over the years to get me ready for this opportunity.”
So far, the new coach is acing his first season at the helm.
The Bears had little trouble in winning their first three games this season, averaging 47 points per contest in victories over Farmington-Nute (56-24), Fall Mountain (33-14) and Newfound (53-22). The offense is humming, and the defense is, too – despite some skewed scoring numbers against thanks to three special teams touchdowns.
Returning senior Gunnar Horman said he’s been pleasantly surprised by how quickly the group has come together, especially after what he called a “shaky” scrimmage against Campbell early on.
“I’ve been really impressed with how quickly they improved,” said Horman, who caught the game-winning touchdown in last year’s championship and is a big target for Nichols in the passing game. “Everyone has stepped up and overshot my goal of what I thought for our first game and we’ve just continued to do it. Each game we just keep on improving and improving.”
A large part of that success has stemmed from the offense, which returned much of the same core across the offensive line, as well as Nichols under center, and both Horman and Garrett Mango at receiver.
Mango caught three touchdowns in Winnisquam’s victory over Fall Mountain on Sept. 14, Horman has been an impact player on both offense and in the secondary for the Bears, and Nichols, the dual-threat quarterback, has picked up where he left off last year with seven TD passes over his last two games, including four against Newfound last week.
“This year his leadership is tremendous. He’s just a good kid to coach. He coaches the other kids and he’s still growing. His arm is stronger and he’s faster,” Hunt said of Nichols. “He was always smart, but I think he’s even smarter now the way he can read defenses and let us know what he’s seeing that can help us.”
The loss of bruising back Angelo Glover was supposed to hurt the rushing game, but with Nichols always a threat to run, Winnisquam’s run-pass option style has been effective for players like Andre Cormier, Nolan Perrino and freshman Brady Palmer.
“That’s something we knew was going to be big,” Hunt said of losing Glover. “So we’re kind of a running back by committee and go with the hot hand. Whoever’s running the ball good and doing good things we go with and it’s nice to have three backs we can utilize.”
Filling holes across the defensive line and linebacker unit has been the biggest challenge for the Bears. The loss of a player the caliber of Caden Remillard is a difficult one to fix, but Winnisquam is doing its best to fill those shoes with the likes of Kyler Boudreau (linebacker), Brandon Marceau (defensive end), Chaz Hibbert (defensive line) and Mason Fellows (defensive line).
The biggest test for that defense will show up Friday night.
After beating run-heavy Newfound last week, Raymond will offer a contrasting pass-heavy scheme not all that different from what the Bears run. The Rams enter averaging 33 points per game and have both the size and speed to match up with Winnisquam.
“I feel with our athletes that we have on defense, I do feel like we’re up for it,” Hunt said. “Our athletic ability up against theirs, it’s going to be a good matchup.”
Nichols, though, isn’t buying the hype. He knows the Bears have bigger goals under Hunt.
“It’s almost just like another week, you know what I mean,” Nichols said. “We prepared for Newfound, we looked at what they ran on defense as a scout team and that’s what we’re doing this week. It’s just another game and we just have the same record so we have to bring it.”
(Jay McAree can be reached at 369-3371, jmcaree@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @JayMcAree.)