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Ridgway football celebrates team with banquet |
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Friday, 21 November 2008 |
By Greg Reedy
Record Sports Editor
The Ridgway varsity football team celebrated its 2008 season with a banquet Thursday night at the Royal Inn.
The team showed a highlight reel of pictures and video from the season.
Cheerleading advisor Sandi Hanes spoke on behalf of the cheerleaders.
"The varsity cheerleaders are an awesome group of girls," Hanes said. "The juniors and seniors, they did a great job with the gym and at the football games."
Jeff Slattery was the underclassman scholar-athlete award winner with a GPA of 4.0. The senior scholar-athlete award winner was Joe Renaud with a 4.16.
Hanes then introduced the cheerleaders and they gave scrapbooks to the players.
Varsity head coach Mark Heindl then expressed his appreciation to the school district and the administration of the district. He also expressed his appreciation to the Ridgway Touchdown Club, president Angie Fabiano, vice president Patti Reed, secretary Carrie Caruso and treasurer Jamie Dickant.
"Without those individuals, I don't know if the program would survive," Heindl said.
He announced the AML All-Stars, Elliot Pontious, Shane Lindgren and Joe Chittester.
Heindl said there were a number of team-building exercises including the borough cleanup.
"As a team, we got together and basically picked up everybody's garbage," Heindl said.
He also enjoyed having the boosters get involved with the golf tournament over the summer and was glad the boosters were around to help cook hot dogs for the youth in the flag football program, of which 60 participated.
He reflected as well on the camp out during the first week of practice and was glad the boosters cooked breakfast and lunch for the players and coaches.
Heindl had the players express appreciation to their parents for all they did for them this year.
Heindl was pleased with the community of Ridgway for their support.
"The people of Ridgway have been phenomenal through this whole process," Heindl said. "It's a great community."
He expressed his appreciation to the ballboys, Aaron Hinton and Daunte Allegretto as well as statistician Zack Pontious and the coaches' wives.
He said the coaches have been great with helping this season.
"We got some great coaches on board," Heindl said.
He included the junior high and Ridgway Rocket coaches among those which help the program.
"I can't say enough about these individuals," Heindl said. "You should be proud to have this group coaching your sons. They do a phenomenal job."
Heindl then spoke about the players and how he wanted to stress team unity.
He then spoke about the season, which the team finished 2-7. Six of the seven losses were to playoff team. Three of them went to the second round and Cameron County is still alive in the playoffs.
"They walked two by two on the field, off the field and in practice," Heindl said.
"They started to trust one another, not off the bat, but as time went on," Heindl said. "They figured out what it took to play together as a team."
Heindl said the seniors will take these lessons with them in the future.
"We laid the groundwork out," Heindl said. "It's in your hands now and nothing is given. We need to learn how to finish. We were in games that we didn't finish. Mentally and physically, we need to learn how to do that."
Heindl said he will meet with the players during the off-season. He then recognized the players.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 26 February 2009 )
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