PITTSFIELD, Mass. - The Hoosac Valley football team Thursday cruised to a 48-6 win over Taconic in the season opener for both teams.
Hoosac Valley (1-0) is optimistic about the upcoming season with a lot of familiar faces on both sides of the ball, but with new head coach Marshall Maxwell they couldn’t wait to get things going.
After forcing Taconic into a quick punt on the first series, Hoosac Valley was able to capitalize with a nice five-play drive that led to a Griffin Mucci rushing touchdown from 37 yards out. Mucci ran for 97 yards on the ground and the touchdown. It wasn’t all positives from the Hurricanes as they were set up with great field position on the next drive, but thanks to costly penalties they were pushed back and forced to punt the ball back over to Taconic.
“I told the guys after the game if we start slow like that and kill yourself on drives with penalties you may dig yourself in a hole that you can’t get out of,” Maxwell said. “If we play like we did in the first quarter we may find ourselves down by two scores right out the gate, but I felt we rallied in the second.”
After that impressive first drive Hoosac was unable to score again before the end of the first quarter giving them the 12-0 lead. Things got better after as the game went on, mainly in part to Qwanell Bradley who early on in the second quarter had a pick six from 33 yards out to give the Hurricanes a three-score lead.
Bradley was all over the place, scoring a touchdown on all three sides of the ball, a rushing touchdown just out of the halftime break from 46 yards out, a punt return on special teams from 60 yards out, and the interception in the first half. Qwanell Bradley also rushed for 82 yards.
“Qwanell is a different player and you can see it,” Maxwell said. “We gave out a chain for the player of the game and there was no reason to watch the film to know that he was different from the rest.”,
It wasn’t just him on the defensive side of the ball making plays as Matthew Witek took an interception back for six from 40 yards out giving Hoosac a commanding 28-0 lead. After the defense forced another punt, they were fortunate to get a poor snap on a punt from Taconic to give them great field position. Will Hakes rushed it in from 6 yards out for the final score of the half, giving them a comfortable 34-0 lead.
After the break, Bradley capped off his night with his third touchdown of the game with a big rush and from that point on it was just game management as Hoosac Valley never looked like they were in trouble throughout the game.
“I told our coaches at halftime we were going to earn our paycheck now because we cleared the bench and played a lot of young guys that weren’t huge contributors during the first half but down the road they will need to contribute later in the season,” Maxwell said. “We needed to coach those kids up because things happen, injuries happen, but these kids bust their butts every week in practice so it was nice getting them in.”
Hoosac Valley will look to keep things rolling next Friday against Wahconah on the road.
As for Taconic (0-1), the Thunder will go back to the drawing board and see what they can improve on as they get going under new head coach Justin Bailey. Taconic will take on Northampton next Thursday, on the road.
