By Kim J. Harmon

 

With guys like Ross Coates anchoring immense offensive and defensive lines, the Newtown High School football team had some pretty high hopes for 2003 … high hopes that never panned out.

“We were pretty confident because we had a lot of good things going for us,” said Ross Coates, a defensive end and guard who was dominant enough in the trenches that he earned himself a selection as a South-West Conference First Team All-Star. “We had a big line and lots of returnees. We were talking about SWC championship and state playoffs.”

But something – a lot of things – went wrong as a tough loss to Stratford, an even tougher (some would say dismal) loss to Bethel and then losses to Brookfield and Bunnell dropped the Nighthawks into a 0-4 hole.

Just like that, the hopes were dashed.

“Right from the first game,” said Coates, “people were having trouble getting it together. The game that hurt the most, though, was Bethel (a 7-0 loss). We thought it was a sure win and we just didn’t play.”

Coates has played … and played well. He has his share of fumble recoveries (three or four) and quarterback sacks to spark the defense and has done his part on offense to open up the holes and allow guys like Kyle Kirch (182 yards against New Milford), John Collins (124 yards against Jonathan Law), Roy Scheunemann (104 yards against Bullard Havens) and Bobby Pattison (92 yards against Stratford and 90 against Weston) to have some big games.

On top of that, Coates – who has seen varsity time since his freshman year – has been pretty consistent with his extra points and even has a field goal (against Bunnell) to his credit. But it is his line work (and size) which has sparked interest from the Coast Guard Academy and could spark a lot of interest from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Franklin & Marshall.

His efforts this year certainly look a lot better considering the amazing turnaround the Nighthawks have made since starting out the season at 0-4. A 14-7 win over New Milford in the annual Boot Trophy game began that turnaround (4-1-1 in the last six games) that had the ‘Hawks on the verge of a .500 record.

“The New Milford game was a big game because we knew we were better than our record said,” said Coates. “We’ve moved on. When we were 0-4, it hurt, but now that we have started to play well, we feel we can end on a high note.”

The only downers in that 4-1-1 turnaround were the 14-6 loss to Immaculate (which was not all that much of a downer, considering the Mustangs did play for the SWC title) and an inexplicable 0-0 tie with Foran.

“Foran was over confidence,” said Coates. “We saw them as an easy opponent, but we got frustrated.”

Coates realized late last week, and early this week, that the ‘Hawks could make up for a lot of stuff if they simply went out on Wednesday and beat arch-rival Masuk (something the ‘Hawks have only done once in the last four years).

That would make it all worthwhile.