The lights go down. The tension falls from the shoulders of each player as the game finally ends. After a long fight, the varsity football team takes a 35-20 loss against Romeo High School on Friday, Oct. 14.

Led by Captain Donavan Moody ’23 and other varsity captains, the football team left everything on the field as they now look forward to what they can do to prepare better for playoffs, working to improve and learn from the loss.

“I think that we made some mistakes,” Moody said. “But I also think that we picked it up as the game went on and had a lot more energy.”

Assistant Coach Ray Filipek said he runs the offense as the offensive coordinator and believes that in-game adjustments are what matter the most during these close calls.

“I’m proud of the way we played and obviously there were mistakes made, but it was a tough loss,” Filipek said. “We need to get better at learning as the game goes on and reacting with their game plan for us.”

Starter Alexander Willson ’25 said he acknowledges the hours the coaches put into watching film throughout the season and making the changes needed to improve the game.

“We have coaches in the press box watching every move,” Willson said. “Along with that, they are always communicating through the microphones to better everything we put out there on the field and I think that we truly have a great system.”

Moody sprained a ligament in his Achilles during the first quarter on third down with 3:30 left on the clock, making an impact in the game and with his teammates. Willson is on defense with Moody and genuinely looks up to him as a mentor and found it sad to see him go down mid-game.

“He is a great player and we missed him out on the field,” Willson said. “We had to put our backups in and push through the change”.

According to Moody, even these losses have taught the team something. The players and coaches on the team learned so much and found it almost a good thing, because then they can rethink their techniques and find out the certain topics the players need to put more effort into.

“We all need to be focused and take every practice day by day,” Moody said. “While leaders are doing a good job, we are still a young team and we can elevate, go to the next level and with that we can make it deeper into the playoffs.”