Norwich returns to action after a two-week absence when it travels to Sidney Saturday. In case you missed it, the game was moved from Friday night to the 1:30 p.m. weekend time. In lieu of an admission charge, fans are asked to donate cleaning supplies at the gate to support those impacted by severe flood damage.
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At UV-Edmeston, if you have a 2011 schedule, the home games all list Friday night games. All of those games were moved to Saturday afternoon, said first-year head coach Brian Banks. With the school on tight purse strings, the decision to play exclusively day games was made to save on the costs of lighting the field for night games.
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Speaking of the Storm, Coach Banks said he has seven players not practicing this week due to injury. The injury bug has nipped at the Storm every week this season, and after a physical game with Oxford on Monday, it got a little worse.
One thing that isn’t hurting is the Storm’s special teams play. On back-to-back weeks, UV-E returned kickoffs for touchdowns. “We’re not practicing special teams any more than normal, and we only work on it one day a week in practice,” Banks said. “A lot of it is pure athleticism by our guys back there. Those guys know where to make cuts, and Kody (Homann) is football savvy.”
On to this week’s matchups in which three of our six local teams are playing division games:
Windsor (0-2) at UV-Edmeston (0-2), Saturday, 1:30 p.m.
Windsor sufferd an overtime loss to Dryden on Monday. The Black Knights led most of their game, but gave up a tying touchdown late in the fourth quarter, and the winning touchdown came on Dryden’s first play of OT. Ismai’l Griffin had the lone TD for Windsor, while Marino Hogan was the top rusher. “It’s difficult to gauge Windsor right now,” Banks said. “We planned to go over and scout them, but their game was rescheduled on the same day we played Oxford.
“We played them a lot when I was at Walton, and I was familiar with what they did back then. It’s not the same anymore. I heard they like to mix it up more.”
Norwich (1-0) at Sidney (0-1), Saturday, 1:30 p.m.
Norwich nearly shutout its first opponent of the season, while Sidney gave up a whopping 73 points to Johnson City two weekends ago. “I don’t think the final score reflects on the game went, and Sidney was playing some good football early in the game,” said Norwich coach John Martinson. “We’re just looking at it as a game that Sidney lost where it made a lot of mistakes. We look at the tradition of the program that Coach Matthews (Jeff) has built. He’ll have his kids up for the game, and I think it will be a heck of a game.”
Norwich won the most recent meeting between these two teams taking a 33-6 win in Martinson’s first season (2009). Before that, Sidney won back-to-back games over Norwich 2005 and 2006. In the former year, the Warriors went on to win the Class C state championship. “We were really excited getting ready to play Owego last week, and then we had the layoff,” Martinson said. “I’m not sure exactly what to expect, but we’ve had some good practices this week, and kids are physically ready to play.”
