Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale football coach Dave St. Hilaire knew he had a talented receiver last year in sophomore Gavin Perkins. All he needed, St. Hilaire figured, was an opportunity.
“We knew going in that he was underutilized last year at points, just because we had guys in front of him,” St. Hilaire said.
Given that opening this season, Perkins has shown so far just what he can do. The junior has seven catches for 147 yards, an average of 21 yards per grab, and two receiving touchdowns in the Ramblers’ two games.
“He runs solid routes, and if he can get a hand on the ball, he’s going to bring it down,” St. Hilaire said. “If you put the ball up he’s going to fight for it, he’s going to come down (with it). He gives (quarterback) Keegan (Choate) a lot of confidence.”
Perkins caught four passes for 92 yards and a touchdown during Friday’s 43-0 win over Camden Hills. St. Hilaire said one of Perkins’s best assets has been his versatility; in addition to lining out wide, Perkins also works as a wingback out of the backfield.
“He’s become a very good blocker. … In order to get on the field, you’ve got to be able to block,” St. Hilaire said. “He’s still learning, but anybody who plays that wingback position for us traditionally has been an outstanding blocker. Sometimes he’s the blocker that works the hardest, just because he’s going up against the edge a lot. And when (Perkins) is fundamentally sound, he has great blocks.”
As a pass-catcher, St. Hilaire said Perkins’s hands and ability to separate stand out.
“He’s a smart player. He’s really football-savvy,” he said. “We can isolate him 1-on-1 with somebody, and he can find an opening. … He’s going to run a route that gets himself open.”
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Gardiner is 0-2, with both losses coming by a combined three points, and as one might expect, no one on the Tigers’ roster or staff is happy with that mark.
At the same time, with losses by scores of 21-20 to Windham and 22-20 to Brewer on the ledger, coach Joe White knows it’s far from panic time.
“We’re a little sour because we’re down 0-2, but it’s not the end of the season and we’re coming up short,” he said. “We’re trying to find our way again. … Cut down on the mistakes and learn how to win when you’ve got the lead, and finish the game.”
The Tigers have badly missed that finishing touch. They led Windham 20-15 before allowing the winning touchdown with less than a minute to play, and were about to take a 14-6 lead into the half against Brewer before an interception and touchdown allowed the Witches to tie the game with 22 seconds left until the break.
“It is frustrating, because we haven’t executed our gameplan as best we can,” White said. “We still have to learn how to finish when we get up on teams, and we can’t make crucial mistakes in the final minutes, or at any point, because that’s the difference between being 2-0 and being 0-2.”
Those mistakes cost the Tigers in Week 1, and they were back at bad moments on Friday. Kyle Adams had a fumble return for nearly 100 yards for a touchdown brought back because of a block in the back.
“It’s just crucial mistakes that are costing us those little points, and those are the little things that make the difference,” White said.
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In two wins, the Cony football team’s offense has almost literally gone as far as quarterback Riley Geyer can take it.
Geyer has 287 yards rushing and four touchdowns on the ground. In the air, the junior has completed 73 percent of his passes for 290 yards, with six touchdown throws. That gives Geyer 577 yards of total offense, just over 88 percent of Cony’s 654 total yards.
After Friday’s 35-7 win at Skowhegan, Geyer said the new play clock rule, which gives an offense 40 seconds from the end of the previous play to snap the ball again, works in Cony’s favor to control the game’s tempo.
“It gives us a little more time to set up, and a little more time for me to make reads. I’d say it’s pretty good,” Geyer said.
Cony’s offense sputtered in the first half of Friday’s game. Aside from Geyer’s 47-yard touchdown run midway through the first quarter, the Rams didn’t get anything going. At the half, Geyer was 3 for 6 passing for just two yards. In the second half, he was 11 for 13, and finished the game with 151 yards passing. All four of Geyer’s touchdown passes came in the second half, with three coming in the fourth quarter as Cony pulled away.
Adjustments made by head coach BL Lippert were key, Geyer said.
“Coach Lip knows what he’s doing. We couldn’t do what we’re doing without our coaching staff,” Geyer said.
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Cony’s win capped an emotional week for Lippert, who lost a friend in former Colby teammate Jacob Seilheimer, who died of brain cancer Wednesday. Seilheimer was a right tackle while Lippert played quarterback.
“He was the life of every party, just a guy you want to be around,” Lippert said. “(Doctors) said he was probably never going to beat this one, so I guess it was a matter of time, but something about him just made you think if anyone was going to beat it, it was probably going to be him.”
At practice the next day, Lippert’s team had a surprise for him.
“I didn’t intend to tell anyone but the team had heard, and unbeknownst to me, after our Thursday walkthrough … they gave me a card with a nice, heartfelt ‘Sorry for your loss’ type of thing,” he said. “I told them a little about him and said that that’s kind of the beauty of football, or sports in general. It brings you in contact with people you otherwise wouldn’t have met, and I’m a better person for having met him.”
(Morning Sentinel reporter Travis Lazarczyk contributed to this report.)
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