High School Football Practice Opens Friday
Coming off a season when it won twice as many games as it lost, the Taconic High School football program has reason to be excited.
And for first-year head coach Justin Bailey, that is the name of the game.
“My main expectation is to bring excitement back to the sport, excitement back to the school,” Bailey said this week. “Taconic is a full vocational school. You have to want to be there. You have to choose to be there. You have to work hard to stay.
“My thing is, when you’re dealing with a seven-hour school day, football shouldn’t be the thing where you say, ‘Oh, man, we gotta go to practice.’ You should be excited to get on the field.”
Classes do not start until Aug. 29, but football starts on Friday with the opening of preseason.
Football and golf kick off the fall season around the commonwealth today with an Aug. 16 first practice. The rest of state’s high school athletes begin their seasons on Monday.
Three of Berkshire County’s eight high school football programs welcome new head coaches this season. In addition to Bailey at Taconic, Marshall Maxwell takes over at Hoosac Valley and Jon Rochelo takes the reins at McCann Tech.
Bailey was an assistant coach for three years under Jermaine Sistrunk, who led the Thunder to a 4-2 record in 2023.
He has a history coaching the current crop of Taconic athletes both at the youth and high school level, and he said Thursday that he is encouraged by the interest his athletes have shown in working the offseason program.
“Some of these kids have certain goals,” Bailey said. “Some want to go play at the next level. Some just want to beat PHS. That’s OK. But how do you do it? You’ve got to put in the work in March, April, May, June.
“That’s a cliche, but it’s true.”
The county’s season gets started on Sept. 6, when Drury hits the road to take on Mahar.
But things really get going the next week, with three home games on Friday, Sept. 13, featuring intra-county battles between Monument Mountain and Lee for the South County Championship and Bailey’s Taconic squad hosting 2023 state semi-finalist Hoosac Valley.
“They’re a tough team,” Bailey said. “They only lost a handful of pieces. They have a brand new coach, but I don’t think they’re going to change that much.
“The most prepared team will win. Hopefully, we’re that team.”
One week later, on Sept. 20, local football fans will get a treat when Maxwell and the Hurricanes make the short trip to Dalton to take on Wahconah for the first time since April 2021 (a 32-22 Wahconah win in the pandemic-era “Fall 2” campaign), or November 2019 (a crossover game between two teams that lost in the Western Mass semifinals the week before) or 2016, when Wahconah won, 27-14, in the last regular season meeting – depending on how you count.
In third full week of local gridiron action, Wahconah’s visit to Pittsfield to face a second straight county foe highlights the action on Sept. 27.
The first weekend in October sees seven of the county’s teams in action on Friday night, including a rematch between Drury and Monument Mountain in Great Barrington. The Spartans were 10-point winners last year in North Adams, one year after the Blue Devils capped a 6-0 regular season with a win at Monument.
And the last weekend in October will feature two county grudge matches: Hoosac Valley at Lee and Pittsfield and Taconic vying for their city championship at BCC.
The other city championship will be decided a week later, when Drury’s Blue Devils travel to take on Rochelo’s McCann Tech Hornets.