On Saturday, the football team played strong for three quarters, before falling short on the road to the Middletown JV team, 14-10. Despite the heartbreaking loss, the team was satisfied with the effort against a scrappy crew of high school students.
“I had never seen a group of freshmen with so much tenacity,” said an astounded senior co-captain Tim McGraw, “It seemed like all of them had hit puberty already, which is something I hadn’t done yet when I was their age.”
The Cardinals caught a break in the first quarter, as the refs were particularly harsh on the Middletown squad, calling personal foul penalties on six of the JV players for late hits. As a result, Wesleyan was able to get a half-yard touchdown run.
“I give my players credit for just getting out there,” said Head Coach and Offensive Coordinator Frank Hauser. “These teenagers play a dirty brand of football, and I refuse to let my squad lower itself to their level. We’ve got class, baby.”
In fact, due to the plethora of penalties, it seemed that the Middletown squad was in danger of losing the game. But the Wesleyan squad lost ten starters due to ferocious tackles by Middletown JV studs Brian “Bruiser” Banks and Stu “Smash” Stevens.
“I mean, we were only a mile from the friendly confines of Andrus Field, yet it felt a lot farther away, because the crowd was so rowdy,” said quarterback Troy Aikman ’08. “I mean, it’s a good thing the police were there or things could have gotten uglier, especially for Mike Mulligan.”
Mulligan ’07, wasn’t able to escape the post-gaming rushing of the field by Middletown fans, and for a while his location was unknown for over twenty-four hours. Luckily he showed up safe and sound at the friendly confines of DKE the next day, despite being naked with “Don’t Mess with M-Town” painted across his chest.
Despite the harsh environment, the team played with a great deal of heart.
“A lot of other teams around the league like to mess with us and knock our skills, but you can’t knock our heart,” said quarterback Tom Brady ’07. “Forget about winning. It’s all about heart baby, that’s all that matters.
The Cardinal ”heart“ allowed Tom Joad ’08 to add a field goal, giving Wesleyan a 10-7 lead going into the 4th quarter. Joad added the three points on his sixth attempt due to five offside penalties called on the Middletown special teams unit. In fact the JV ”special“ teams unit is filled by Middletown special-ed students.
Late in the game, Middletown picked off a pass attended for wide receiver John Galt ’08 and started an 80-yard march downfield picking apart the Cardinal defense, who had mysteriously lost defensive coordinator John Raba at the start of the fourth quarter. Raba was later seen along Interstate-91, holding a ”Will coach for food…or Williams.“ His return next year is still in question.
”It was pretty disappointing we lost today,“ said Mike Rotch ’07. ”We had been playing with so much heart, and last night coach gave us a great pump-up speech, and we had an intense pep rally in the Freeman showers, but this crowd was ridiculous. They were even worse that the blatantly homophobic Trinity fans.“
Luckily, next year’s recruiting class looks good for the Cardinals, as there is talk of getting a current New Jersey prep star, who is rumored to have over a ”ten-hundred“ on the SATs. Unfortunately the new SATs are scored over out of 2,400, which may not make him a guaranteed shoe-in for admission.
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