VSMS 2011-12 Football Recap
By: Nate H
As the season approached for the 2011-12 football season visions of last year’s 2-5 season still haunted the minds of the coaches and the veteran eighth grade students. However the team was out to prove that is was a new year, new team, new coach, and a new attitude. Coach Fisher had spent the previous year under Coach Anderson as the offensive coordinator and with the retirement of Coach Anderson, Fisher had the opportunity to prove himself as a head coach. As the season approached the team seemed ready. With a deep and talented backfield consisting of Seth, Tyrell, Jordan and Chris it seemed as if we could run all over any team we played. However regardless of the talent and speed of any backfield, without a good offensive line no team can run their offensive. The offensive line changed around a bit but finally settled about midway through the season. Right guard Nate and center Cameron were the only returning offensive linemen this year so we depended on brand linemen. Right tackle Neil, left guard Thomas and left guard Jason had never played offensive line before until this season. Nevertheless we were a proud group of players and nicknamed ourselves the “Fat Five.” The real story for Valley just like most years is the defense. The defensive coordinator coach Brooks (a former D-lineman at the University of Maine) tries his hardest every year to create one of the best defenses in the French Broad conference. This year he came close holding our opponents to very few yards about 14.6 allowed per game in all except our game against Asheville Middle. The season started off strong in our first game against Enka with a 22 to 8 victory at home. In the next game a 36 to 26 win over Reynolds at home tied our number of victories for last year. However the next two games we fell short first with a 6 to 28 loss to Erwin then with a 44 to 22 loss to Asheville on the road. We recovered with perhaps our best defensive game of the year with a 22 to 0 victory over North Buncombe.
