Week 1 Woodmore Football

Woodmore football opened their 2024 season with a win on the road at North Central. It was their first season opening win since 2013. The score of the game was 37-0, Woodmore’s running back, Landon Rich had an outstanding performance with 24 carries for 202 yards rushing on the ground. He had an average of 8.5 yards per carry. Landon also had 4 touchdowns to top off the night. On Woodmore’s first possession of the night Landon punched in the opening score of the season after a 7 yard touchdown rush. His second touchdown of the night was featured when Woodmore drove down the field 40 yards in 9 plays with Rich punching it in with a 4 yard touchdown. With Rich’s third touchdown of the night, he ran the ball in for a 10 yard touchdown with 1 minute and 50 seconds left in the first half. With 3 minutes and 55 seconds left in the game, Rich would run his final touchdown 24 yards to the endzone. As well as his excellent offensive game he also had an amazing defensive game. He had many tackles and 2 safeties to help shut down the North Central offense.” I asked Rich what his stats consisted of in the North Central game and his response was “ I ran the ball 26 times for 202 yards with 4 touchdowns. On the defensive side, I had 2 safeties and multiple tackles”.Rich was also asked what his favorite play of the game was and his response was “My favorite play of the game was definitely the second safety I got, I was hype”. Finally, I asked him how he believes that the rest of the football season will go. “I believe that the season will go well and I think that we will be a playoff team.”

Sophomore quarterback, Calvin Lipstraw, was once again back at the starting position. Lipstraw only started twice in his freshman season. Lipstraw was 6 for 10 with 108 yards passing. 3 of his passes were thrown to sophomore Wesley Kayser for a total of 74 yards. Calvin had 1 touchdown throw for 60 yards to Wesley Kayser. Lipstraw was asked about how he felt after that throw, his response is the following. “ Wesley ran a great route, I threw it up to him and he ran it into the endzone. It is by far the best feeling as a quarterback in football”. Lipstraw was also asked how he felt after the game and what he was thinking about after a huge win like that. Lipstraw’s response was “ I feel good about the game but there is still a lot of room for improvement in the future”. Finally, Lipstraw was asked how he thinks that the rest of the season will go. “I think that this season will go a lot better than the last couple of seasons, Coach Stechers has helped us a lot to become a better and more confident team”. Overall Woodmore had 322 yards of total offense to North Central’s -10 yards. Woodmore had a total of 44 plays on offense while North Central only ran 21 plays. Kyle Mangus had 1 interception for the Wildcats and North Central had 0 interceptions. Rich scored 4 of Woodmore’s 5 touchdowns, the other was scored by Wesley Kayser. Kyle Mangus hit 3 out of his 5 extra points with a 60% made ratio.

Now to meet our new Woodmore Wildcats football head coach, coach Stecher. Coach Stecher had some of our coaches from last year stay but he also brought in 5 new coaches. I asked him a few questions so people can know some background on him. The first question I asked him was, what school did you coach at before woodmore? “I was the head football coach at Monroeville for seven years. Prior to that, I was involved in several different programs including Fremont St Joe, Port Clinton, Lakota, Danbury, and Genoa”. Secondly, I asked him why did you come to woodmore? His response was, “I really enjoy coaching and love to be around the excitement of seeing a football program develop and succeed. Woodmore is a great opportunity to reconnect with the student athlete and a community that supports their athletic programs. How did your first win at Woodmore feel?  “Awsome!! Seeing the kids get their first win of the season was a blessing!” The fourth question he was asked was, what do you think that you have changed about the team to make them better? His response was, “I dont think I’ve personally changed anything. The team made its mind up, as a whole, to “Be The Change.” They’re doing great getting the job done”. Finally I asked him after the North Central game after both teams gathered to do a prayer, would you like to continue that trend with all the rest of the teams that you will be facing and make sure that God is still a part of the game? “I have led team prayers similar to this in the past and planned to do so after the North Central game. During the handshakes, a North Central player asked me to lead team prayer, which I happily did. God works for the good in all of us and I will gladly ask every future team we play if they would like to join us in prayer at the conclusion of the game. It’s truly a blessing to be able to shine the light among so many young men.”

Next week Woodmore will be facing Montpelier at home as the first home game of the season.