Crowds flooded the Warrior Bowl to see Freshman Orange and White fight hard against the Cedar Ridge Raiders during their final game of the season, on Thursday Nov. 9.

“It is really nice when the parents, the kids and students come out and be positive and and encourage our kids,” head freshman football coach Samuel Forr said. “It is always fun when the players do well and everybody gets excited. It is generally a very good positive, encouraging atmosphere.

To bring their best to the games, the two freshman teams put in a lot of effort during their practices.

“[This week] we had a couple of really okay practices,” Coach Forr said. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to win, but we spent a lot of time working on our basic stuff and trying to improve and get better and make sure that the freshmen have a good foundation moving forward into JV or varsity.”        

Both of the teams fully invested themselves in the game in terms of mindset and physical involvement.

“I practiced hard and like mentally thought about the game to prepare for it,” Tommy Klein ‘20 said.

Despite both of the teams’ long fought efforts, they were still unable to get an advantage against the Cedar Ridge Raiders.

“The most important thing that we needed to bring to the table last night was enthusiasm,” Coach Forr said. “In the second half we really responded. The kids were enthusiastic and they played hard, [but] unfortunately we were unable able to come out with a victory.”

After several attempts to catch up, Freshman Orange lost to the Raiders with a close score of 16-22.

“I think that [Cedar Ridge was] a good team and they were pretty big and strong. Their running back was really good,” Blane Holschuh ‘20 said. “I think our defense could have done a little bit better, but we lost mostly because of our offense, but we’re a team so we can’t blame it on one side.”

Though they fought really hard, the Freshman White was defeated with a gaping score of 0-22.

“We lost because our offense wasn’t prolific enough and we couldn’t get multiple good plays in a row,” Klein said.

As the two teams lost their last game of the season, they still believe that their seasons were both successful.

“We didn’t have the best season ever, but I am proud of the effort the kids put forward,” Coach Forr said. “It is hard. If football was easy every kid would be able to do it. These kids come up here very early in the morning [and] often stay very late at night. And they put in a lot of time on top of school work and on top of all the extracurriculars activities that most students can’t do. These kids are special because they work so much harder than most students at this school.”

Though the freshmen’s football season is over they will still work hard to improve their game during the offseason. Both teams hope to take their last games as learning experiences for the following year as JV or varsity players.

“I’m looking forward to next year [and] I think I can improve my game a lot,” Holschuh said. “I just love football so I’m looking forward to it.”