Imagine you’re a high school football player. You’re optimistic to play and excited to see how your season goes.
Then you lose your first game. Then your second game. Two games turns into ten, ten into twenty and pretty soon you find yourself staring at a dark hole of forty-one straight losses.
That’s where the Normandy Invaders found themselves heading into 2017 season.
The Invaders not only lost games, but also lost players that showed interest in playing. Senior Quarterback Ryan Dengler speaks on how tough the times were at Normandy and why he stuck it out:
“It’s difficult, it’s very frustrating. That’s why I think a lot of people dropped off in the past because it is so frustrating. But I had a love for the game and I felt like in my mind that I had to have that goal to take the team to get a win. I needed to lead us to get that win because I knew we had this long losing streak, so I felt it was almost my duty to help the team get a win.”
Dengler is in his second season as a quarterback for the Invaders after a sophomore season at wide receiver. He had never won a game until two weeks ago when the Invaders took down Wellington for their first win since 2012. He fulfilled his duty as the quarterback for Normandy, achieving his goal of bringing a win back to Normandy.
For Senior running back Brandon Callahan, winning the first game in five years for the Invaders was refreshing, almost a relieving feeling.
“It means a lot. My brother and sister went here and they never won a game. It’s crazy thinking that we turned it around.” stated Callahan after the Invaders improved to 2-0 after their win against Lincoln West.
It all starts with Normandy Head Coach Brian Darden. Darden is in his first year as head of the football coaching staff and you can immediately sense how much different the team is.
“He’s definitely changing the mindset,” said Dengler. “From losing, being frustrated and down all the time, he’s changing us onto confident players who want to win and are going to win.”
Normandy welcomes Lutheran West into Byers Field on Friday in a battle of unbeatens.
Were gonna have to fix a lot of things make a lit of improvements and hopefully the game will go our way.
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