Falcons' fury shines through in scrimmage
BRIMFIELD TWP. — Right before Field's opening scrimmage against Kenmore-Garfield, a storm struck Kenneth W. Lohr Stadium, sending a torrent of rain across the Falcons' home field as refs and parents alike huddled in their cars.
Then, the rain ceased and a different kind of storm struck.
From the moment Friday's scrimmage began and the Field football team started to methodically move the ball down the field, it was clear that this team wasn't just improved from last year's 2-8 campaign.
The Falcons were also playing with a serious edge.
"We're pissed off about last year," Field senior Robert Atha said. "We repeated every single practice, 'We're not going 2-8 again.'"
The Falcons' feisty nature was embodied by fellow senior Braxton Baumberger, who despite also playing quarterback, approached the linebacker position with passion Friday, delivering one hard hit after another.
"That scares me," Furino acknowledged.
But that's simply how Baumberger plays the game, even if he acknowledged that the coaching staff has talked to him about being careful on defense to avoid unnecessary injuries as the team's starting signal-caller.
"Oh, it's game on," Baumberger said. "I'm going to hit somebody, that's what it is right there. I'm looking to make a play for my team, push it back in, fill the alley, do all that for them."
It was game on for Baumberger and the Falcons Friday, who asserted themselves in the trenches on both sides of the ball. In last year's scrimmage against the Rams, they scored on their first play, per Furino, and never again. Field couldn't move the ball consistently against K-G a year ago. The Falcons sure could Friday.
"What I told our kids was, 'Hey, listen, that team right there is as good as the team we played last year,'" Furino said. "Like that team had good athletes, same number of kids, same everything. They came here, everything was the same and we're different."
Braxton Baumberger, Matt Furino see improvement at Field
Scrimmages can be hard to measure.
Indeed, no one kept score Friday as the only time the Kenneth W. Lohr Stadium scoreboard was used was to count down the minutes until the scrimmage began.
As Furino turned to his team afterward, he acknowledged the difficulty that lies in assessing a scrimmage, especially before reviewing the tape, but noted he had heard from Rams coaches that the Falcons simply looked different.
"It's a good feeling to see that coaches are recognizing that our offseason work has really paid out and they're noticing it and everybody's seeing how we're a bigger and badder team than we were last year," Baumberger said. "A lot of kids committed to it. Our linemen were here since January in the weight room ready to play football and that's the thing you like to see right there, kids that commit to football and actually want to play."
In particular, per Furino, the Rams coaches barely recognized Falcons sophomore running back Drexal McAmis, who learned on the fly as a freshman and then bulked up mightily during the offseason.
"He's starting to become more of an athlete, making cuts," Baumberger said. "Last year, he was a bowling ball, run everyone over. Now, he's making cuts, finding the open field and he's a little bit quicker."
Field's line followed a similar narrative.
"They're obviously really, really big and they just worked their tails off in the weight room and it comes to fruition on the field," Atha said. "The weight room plays a big part on the football field, but they also know what they're doing really well."
Indeed, the line grew to the point that Atha, a leader on the line last season, was allowed to take on a different position as a fullback/tight end for the Falcons.
"I thank Coach Furino for giving me the opportunity to get the ball in my hands and show what I can do with it," Atha said. "It's a great feeling."
Matt Furino hopes Field reaps the rewards
Last year's 2-8 season was a hard pill to swallow.
It came right on the heels of a 2020 campaign that saw the Falcons snap their streak of four straight losing seasons (including 0-10 in 2017) only for COVID-19 to prematurely end their season after six weeks.
"We have had dynamic seasons from the past, but we fall away every once in a while and it takes time to get back," Furino said. "I'm hoping that I'm seeing right now that we're coming back to what we used to be a few years ago."
Furino acknowledged that this year is hard to predict in a league that is hard to predict, with Metro Athletic Conference rival Norton coming off a perfect regular season but graduating a lot and Ravenna and Streetsboro traditionally strong but graduating their longtime quarterbacks. And that's after the Falcons take on half the Portage Trail Conference in non-conference play, with Southeast coming off a 9-2 season but graduating a lot, Mogadore coming off a Region 21 title game appearance and Rootstown turning into a postseason regular in recent years. Still, if Furino couldn't guess his team's final record, he felt very positive about the way they would play each and every game.
"We're going to go down swinging in every one and people are going to know we're on the field," Furino said. "I think these kids deserve to win a lot of games this year, I really do, and I don't mean that by their athletic ability. I mean they deserve to win games. They have worked hard in the offseason. They have done everything that I've asked."
His hope is that their hard work is rewarded on the field.
"It'll pay off," Furino said. "Even if it doesn't in wins, later on in life, they'll be better husbands, better workers, better fathers, better everything. So, it'll pay off no matter what, but, boy, I'd like to see some of the riches for these kids.
"I'm an old has-been. The wins don't matter too much to me anymore, but to see them show people that, hey, we were 2-8 last year and barely 2-8 and to get some wins this year and to show people how hard work and dedication can change a program around, that would make me happy, that's for sure."
This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Falcons' fury shines through in opening scrimmage
