Sports
Nearly 30 Seniors Return for CHS Football Season
Rams coach Ecke has high expectations for his experienced squad.
The Cheshire football team held its first practice of the season Monday evening, the first day allowed by the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, and no one was more optimistic about the upcoming year than head coach Mark Ecke.
"We're excited. We've got 28 seniors coming back, which is by far the biggest group we've ever had," Ecke said. "They're a great group of kids. They worked real hard in the off-season and we've got a lot of guys who have played a lot. Realistically, on offense you're looking at 10 starters coming back. Kids who started at least five games last year and we have about eight on defense who have started. So it's great."
Ecke also has outstanding leadership from his three talented captains, running back Billy Weyrauch, receiver/linebacker Sebastian Little and receiver/defensive back Jake Scinto.
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"Not only are they great football players, they're great kids, so it's great to have them out there as examples for the other kids to look up to," Ecke said.
The Rams finished a disappointing 5-5 last season, losing four in a row at one point by a total of 13 points. Cheshire ended on a good note by defeating Southington on Thanksgiving 49-39, keeping the Blue Knights from securing a playoff berth in Class LL.
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"When you go back and look at those films, it's a play here and a play there," Ecke said. "It's not like we weren't a good football team, but we didn't put too many total games together. We're hoping we can take care of those little things so that doesn't happen to us again.
"The kids were frustrated, the way the season went, especially when you're we're losing by a point, we're losing by three points. But when you look at the quality of the teams we were playing, we were a good 5-5 football team.
When you're playing two state champions, a state semifinalist, there were some pretty good football teams in there. (To beat Southington) that was huge. Psychologically, I've finished 4-6 (before) and losing on Thanksgiving is such a downer. To end the season on a positive note with wins over Shelton and Southington was huge last year."
With the construction of the artificial turf field, the Rams first 2011 home season game on Sept. 15 will be played at Sheehan High School in Wallingford at 7:00 p.m.
