'The Stand' at the Heart of Granby Football's First Victory

At the heart of Granby Memorial High football team’s 13-12 victory over Windsor Locks/Suffield/East Granby - the first win for the program at the varsity level - was The Stand.

Let’s set the stage: with three minutes left in the game and Granby clinging to a one-point lead, Pequot Uncas League rival Windsor Locks/Suffield/East Granby recovered a Bears’ fumble at the 10-yard line and, with the aid of a penalty, moved literally within inches of the Bears’ goal line.

Thus began Granby’s goal-line stand, which henceforth will be known simply as The Stand, a five-play sequence that was, in the words of one Granby parent, so “epic” that it has quickly become the stuff of town sports legend.

The Raiders put the ball in the hands of elusive running back Trystan Cauley, who tormented the Bears’ defense all game and wound up with 165 yards rushing and two touchdowns, five times. (Granby was penalized on one play, which accounted for the Raiders getting five chances instead of four.)

But each time Cauley got the ball, he was met with the collective resistance of a band of football brothers hungry for their first varsity victory.

“We had a lot of hats on the ball,” Granby Memorial head coach Paul Schmutz said in a telephone interview. “Everyone got in and drove [Cauley] back. It was really exciting. … We’ve been working on our tackling. We tell the kids to, ‘Bite the ball.’”

Schmutz credited all 13 players who rotated in on defense — Ben Marlor, Zach Balboni, Glenford Gutzmer, James Utso, Stephen Blake, Jordyn Hurley, Tryg Rafoss, Tom Ullmann, Jake Largay, Ryan Dirienzo, Pat Gerrow, Caleb McMullin and Josh Woodruff — for their effort in driving the Raiders back 10 yards from the original line of scrimmage.

“It was absolutely amazing; it felt like after that we deserved to win that game,” said Dirienzo, a team captain who was the right tackle in The Stand. “My father said he hasn’t seen anything like that before.”

Dirienzo said that he and Blake, a fellow captain, rallied the players after stuffing Cauley on an all-out blitz on first down.

“It felt good and [the Raiders] got nothing,” Dirienzo said.

On second down, the Bears drilled Cauley for a five-yard loss.

“That got everyone pumped up,” Dirienzo said.

The Bears held for two more plays and got the ball back with the turnover on downs with a little less than two minutes remaining; they managed to run the clock down to 19.6 seconds.

The defense once again stuffed Cauley and, when the clock ticked to 0:00, the Granby players flooded the field and celebrated a victory after suffering 11 consecutive defeats, which included an 0-10 inaugural varsity season last year.

Now the Bears, at 1-1 on the year, find themselves in new territory: being a .500 team.

The victory was particularly sweet for Dirienzo and Balboni, two captains who have been with the program since its inception four years ago.

“It’s been pretty fun and pretty exciting that this program was literally nothing four years ago,” Dirienzo said. “We went from being just a club to starting something new. It meant a lot to be a part of the first varsity team. We knew we weren’t going to be the greatest. It stunk to lose all those games. Now we’ve started a legacy.”

Balboni, who played cornerback during The Stand, agreed.

“It’s the best feeling in the world knowing we were there when the team first started and we were there the first varsity game ever and the first varsity win ever,” Balboni said. “We did it. We finally won a game and knowing I was a part of it was incredible.”

There certainly was more to the game than those five plays at the Granby goal line.

Stephen Blake rushed for 148 yards on 25 carries, and the Bears rolled up 219 total yards on the ground on 49 attempts.

Balboni caught a 20-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Curt Field to give the Bears a 7-6 lead in the first half before Cauley ripped off a 72-yard run with 24 seconds left in the second quarter to give the Raiders a 12-7 halftime advantage.

Still trailing 12-7 in the second half, Marlor scored on a 5-yard run to put the Bears up for good.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of the victory.

“It means absolutely everything,” Dirienzo said. “We went 0-10 last year and nobody in Granby gave us a chance except for maybe our parents and some of our buddies and fans. We were told that we probably weren’t going to get a victory. … My buddy from Longmeadow, Mass. played in the [Western Mass-Central Mass] Super Bowl last year and he said that our victory meant more to Granby than the Super Bowl did for Longmeadow.”

“It proves to the rest of the league, but also to ourselves, that we can win,” Balboni added.

Any good sports legend has a delicious subplot, and this one has a doozy: The Stand very nearly didn’t happen.

Indeed, with the Raiders thisclose to scoring the go-ahead touchdown, Schmutz looked at the clock and conferred with defensive coordinator Rich Gadoury to mull the option of allowing the cooperative team to score to put the game in the hands of Granby’s offense with enough time to drive down the length of the field.

But Schmutz and Gadoury decided to place their faith in the hands of their defense, and they were rewarded with The Stand.

“I think the players came into their own at that particular time,” Schmutz said. “They really played hard and played smart football.”

Granby’s next game is Saturday on the road against Ellington/Somers, the best team in the Pequot Uncas League. But a loss would do little to dull the afterglow of the team’s first victory.

“It was amazing,” Dirienzo said. “Even the parents in Granby are still talking about it.”