This week your 3-0 Cortland Red Dragons take on undefeated Morrisville at home. This week unlike no other is a special one for the Dragons because Coach Fitzpatrick our head coach, coached at Morrisville for many years before coming to Cortland only 3 years ago. Also, the Dragons are coming off a bye-week the team is ready and rested having 2 weeks to prepare there is no room for faults and mental mistakes since Morrisville is always tough competition. After a week of practice, the Dragons were off and ready to go and face 4-0 Morrisville. This was a wild game!
Cortland started off with the ball and they had their work cut out for them as the Morrisville defense was not only a tough one but they were a smart one they knew we could pass the ball with the receivers we have, JJ Lapp #4, Cole Burgess #18 and Rashad Tucker #5, three stud wide receivers. Morrisville played a drop 8 defense where they had most of their guys in pass protection making it hard for us to move the ball by passing it to any one of our receivers because they were being jammed and double teamed the whole time. We had to change up but like Coach Fitz said “A great team needs to be able to play different ways we could run the ball or we can pass the ball”
Morrisville defensive game-plan was strong but Cortlands was stronger. Morrisville comes out with the ball still with the game tied at 0-0, The Morrisville offense was driving the ball on us but then a couple of huge hits from both defensive captains Josh Cordero #12 and Zack Thuessen #56 to cause a fumble to be recovered by linebacker Devin MacArthur #22.
The momentum was hot and the Dragons were off putting up two scores fast both time to #18 Cole Burgess playing one ‘hell’ of a game in the first half. Half time approached and the Dragons entered the locker room up 14-0 they had the momentum and the coaches were talking to us about different and better ways to help us win. As the half ended the Dragons came out with the kickoff, the first play of the half the kickoff team runs down there and Joe Ruggieri #50 makes a huge hit to start off the second half with a huge momentum boost.
The Dragons defense played a great game stopping them on third and fourth downs back-to-back throughout the whole game there was only one time when Morrisville made a Fourth down conversion. The Dragons ended up putting up two more score to make the scores 28-0, Towards the final minute the Morrisville offense threw a touchdown in the Dragons red-zone to have their first score of the day making the score 28-7. With 48 seconds left the Dragons knew we had secured the victory and did not need to put another drive in potentially injuring a player, the quarterback Zack Boyes went out there lead his offense and took a knee to seal the deal for the Dragons making them 4-0.
The Red Dragons look to continue their success on the road next Saturday against Brockport who always produces a quality football team.