DAVID COOK
Sports Scene
Since moving to 8-man football four years ago, the Fulton-Middleton football team has been experiencing some success. With a solid group of players returning from last year’s team, the Pirates are poised to build on that success.
Fulton turned in a 6-4 overall record last season. The Pirates also made the 8-man playoffs for a second straight season.
“We as a staff and us as a program feel like we have our footing underneath of us,” said Fulton-Middleton coach Jason Baker. “Last year we returned three seniors and it was my first year coaching the eight man, so it was a little bit of uneasiness going into it, but we had a lot of buy in and we had a good year. This year we return a lot of upperclassmen from last year’s team so they know what to expect from us and we know what to expect from this league that we play in.”
This season, the squad returns plenty of talented players on both sides of the line. Peyton Reynolds is back at quarterback and also lines up at defensive end. Fulton featured a strong ground game last season and the Pirates look to be solid running the ball again this year.
“I definitely think our run game is a strong point,” Reynolds said, “but don’t count our passing game out either. We’ve been working on our passing game in 5-on-5s this summer and we have some great running backs.”
Tanner Villalobos returns at running back and defensive back. Villalobos has seen the team make progress the past couple seasons and sees more improvement this season.
“We had a real good build back season last year,” Villalobos said. “The last couple years we’ve been building back. Every year we’ve been making steps in the right direction and this offseason we’ve definitely made some right steps in the right direction. I’m excited, we’ve just got to keep on working at it.”
Trevor Brown and Parker Billings are a pair of returning tight ends. Brown will also play linebacker on defense while Billings will line up at defensive end.
Jared Akin lines up at offensive guard and defensive end while Connor Cunningham can line up at multiple positions on offense and is a defensive back.
While Fulton made the playoffs last season, they fell in the opening round against Portland St. Patrick. This year the goal is to make an even longer run in the playoffs.
“We want to make a bigger run in the playoffs,” Cunningham said. “We had a first-round exit last year and we want to go farther than that. Our goal is to have everyone buying into what we are doing.”
Working together as a team will be key to having a successful season.
“What we need is to work together,” Akin said. “We did that very well last year. We worked together a lot this summer, we had 30 people out to our camp and its great to see the team work together and I think we will have a great season ahead of us.”
Making a deep playoff run will definitely make the season special.
“We want to win a playoff game,” Baker said. “It hasn’t been done since 2011. Fulton is a very prideful community when it comes to football. Getting in the playoffs is something we strive for, but making deep runs in late October and November is something these kids are wanting to do.”
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