Wahconah Deals With Key Injury in Bid to Repeat
DALTON, Mass. -- The road to Gillette is always in the back of the minds on high school football players as they suit up for the first day of preseason, but for Wahconah, it’s a road they’ve traveled on and look to repeat as they enter the 2015 season.
Wahconah finished 11-0 in the regular season in 2014 and second in the state; losing to Holliston in the State Final, 43-0. The Warriors are looking to defend their Western Massachusetts title, Berkshire County title and, as every team across the state hopes, to get back on the road to Gillette come December.
“Once you have a taste of something and you want something, there’s always a pressure to do it again,” coach Gary Campbell said. “Internally there’s always a pressure to succeed, Western Mass champs, Berkshire County champs, State Champs, however, we don’t let it affect our daily process.”
With the loss of 17 seniors from the 2014 squad, Wahconah’s process will see a lot of new faces on the field this season, not to mention senior caption, defensive end Cole Morrison will be sidelined until mid-October as he continues to recover from an ACL tear.
Morrison, a member of the Wahconah basketball team, went down in their Western Mass semi-final game back in March against Hampshire. The 6-foot-4 center went up for a dunk and landed awkwardly, falling to the ground. He attempted to return to the game, but the pain held him back and resulted in an MRI revealing the ACL tear and the news of a sixth-month recovery.
Campbell was at the Cage that afternoon cheering on the basketball team.
“When he said he couldn’t go, something was seriously wrong,” he said. “That’s a tough boy right there, when he went down I felt such disappointment for their team and for Cole.”
Morrison has been rehabbing for the past five months. He explained that the extremity of it has since died down and his doctor has provided him with workouts to do at lifts and practices.
“I’m just following what my physical therapist says and what the doctors say,” Morrison explained. “I’m not trying to jinx myself or anything, but I’m shooting to be back early or mid-October, but it all depends on how PT goes.”
Just three days into pre-season, the Warriors are confident about the upcoming season. Both Morrison and junior Will Genaway, who will be taking of the role of quarterback, feel as though their off-season was very beneficial and that the heart of this team will take them a long way.
“We had a great team last year, but we learned last year was last year’s team” Morrison said. “We have to do new things, but this year we have to work out how to play all our new talent in. We’ve been working out, we’ve come up in the off-season just to throw around with each other and [Will] Genaway, he’s been throwing and he’s looking good.”
Genaway will be taking over for Nick Clayton, who graduated. Wahconah lost eight starters on offense and seven starters on defense, but Campbell has no worries when it comes to numbers.
“There’s no doubt that we have good numbers, each class has about fourteen, which is good for Wahconah Regional High School,” he said. “Ratio wise we are really healthy, however we will have a lot of juniors and sophomores play.”
Campbell is still unsure where all these new faces will be going on the field and is looking to use these next few days and scrimmages that they have set up to put their formula together; one thing he was sure of was Genaway and his role as quarterback.
He was confident in saying that he will be a “heck of a quarterback.”
Wahconah will be heading to West Springfield Saturday for scrimmages against Chicopee Comp and West Springfield. Its first game is scheduled for Sept. 11 at home against Northampton.