Windham wins first game of the season topping Middlefield Cardinal 42- 6

Photo by Ashleigh McCune

When two teams of equal strength and desperation meet on the field of battle, the game is often not decided by talent, but by heart, mistakes, and momentary flashes of brilliance.

It happened at Gettysburg. It happened at Thermopylae. It happened at Ed Liddle Field last night.

Only a desperate team can overcome 13 penalties in the first half, including several personal fouls that are not part of the modus operandi of a Jake Eye squad.

It also helps that the 2025 Homecoming King emerged as the knight in shining armor that the Bombers have been seeking through this entire season.

It was a night custom made for the return of hundreds of alumni, as a large portion of the epic class of 1975 celebrated the 50th anniversary of Windham’s first playoff team, the state semi-finalists who earned Coach Stan Parrish a career that led to the Super Bowl.

On the gridiron were two teams in the throes of the worst season in their recent histories, two teams who had been mercy-ruled in each of their first games. The Middlefield Cardinal Huskies, newly added to the Northeastern Athletic Conference, suited up only 15 players, and the four not on the field all wore numbers higher than the 60’s, meaning that every back had to play every down on both offense and defense.

Windham, however, for all the agony of the weekly spankings they had received, continues to add players every week. My count was 25 players in pads this week, most of them two-way players, but with enough boys on the sidelines to give an occasional respite to weary warriors on this preternaturally warm late September evening.

The Bombers received the opening kick, and it became immediately apparent that Alex Eye, playing only his second game, was being incorporated into the running game. Two tentative runs by Eye and a stuff of DeJuan Ramsey yielded only four yards, though, and the opening drive ended with a punt and an audible groan from the bleachers.

The groans only became louder as the Huskies, whose quarterback never met a pass he didn’t want to throw, connected on a 40-yard completion over the undersized Bomber defenders, a sight seen way too often in this first half season. Several penalties, including pass interference and offsides, helped Cardinal march its way down to the Windham seven.

And there the Bombers staged one of the most glorious goal line stands of recent history. Lineman Devin Sherman flattened the first run for no gain. DeJuan Ramsey, as if to compensate for his pass interference call, combined with Alex Eye to stuff the second. A completed pass, however, took the ball down to the two-yard line.

Then, like the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, the Bombers began trading blows with their white-clad foes.

On third and two, Cardinal false started, moving the ball back to the seven. A pass interference call on Gavin Kiser returned the ball to the four. A three-yard gain took the ball to the half-yard line.

But at 3:11 of the first quarter, the Windham Bombers, who had been stung for over 50 points a game average this season, held the line, repulsing the Cardinal plunge up the gut in one of the most valiant efforts they have mustered this year, giving the ball to the Bombers with their backs against the end zone.

Sophomore quarterback Bryan Smithberger, who has had more than his share of aerial misery this year, tucked the second snap under his arm and weaved his way around left end for 17 yards. On the next play the interior line of Devin Sherman, Malikye Petrich, Jacob Dallner, Azeon Davis and Cam Peet, those unheralded grunts who do most of the heavy lifting on every play, opened a hole big enough for Athletic Director Dougle Hankins to motor through.

It wasn’t Hankins, though; it was Smithberger again, who loped 70 yards until being run down by the fastest defensive back Middlefield had to offer. DeJuan Ramsey finished this glorious drive around right end at 1:42 of the first quarter to give the Bombers their very first lead of the 2025 season. Alex Eye slipped by right guard to add the conversion, and Windham led 8-0.

Loudon Collins, who has emerged as a worthy successor to Jack Eye as a strong-legged kickoff artist, booted the ball to the Cardinal one. The Huskies came out in a spread offense, but once again, Devin Sherman demonstrated ferocious tackling technique to pancake the runner and end the stanza.

The second quarter opened with a convincing sack by Michael Bolyard, netting a 10-yard loss, forcing the Huskies to deploy their Australian-style punter, whose short boot gave Windham the ball on the Cardinal 37. The Bombers air game fell apart, though, with two incompletions followed by a Huskie interception of a ball that passed through more hands than a bump-set-spike by the volleyball team.

Cardinal lost no time in launching their air attack, culminating in a 60-yard reception at 9:22 to cut the Windham margin to 8-6. A failed conversion left the tally there.

An unexpected onside kick settled into the arms of Matt Kolaczek on the 43. Two running plays went nowhere – and then it was time for unheralded Ethan Thornton to capture the attention of the Bomber faithful.

Hassled by the Huskie linebackers, Smithberger skittered around the backfield until spotting Thornton on the right sideline, clicking for a picture-perfect catch of 29 yards. On a first and ten, Coach Jake Eye again incorporated the newly developed Smithberger running game, with Bryan pounding over right guard for a 12-yard gain to the Cardinal 10.

Another Smithberger gain of five preceded a horribly sloppy sequence of false starts and holding penalties that moved the ball back to the 26-yard line for a second and goal attempt. DeJuan Ramsey, the smallest player on the field, loaded an entire team on his back on the next play, jetting around right end for the entire 26 yards for the second Bomber score. Alex Eye’s conversion made the score 16-6 with 4:45 remaining in the half.

Another compilation of Bomber penalties on the ensuing Cardinal drive moved the ball to the Windham 34, but brilliant pass defense by Ethan Thornton on third down forced a punt, whereupon an ill-timed Bomber fumble gave the ball right back on the Windham 15. It seemed that the Bombers were almost preordained to making victory as difficult as possible.

Except that DeJuan Ramsey, whose earlier pass interference calls had been a gift to Middlefield, decided to atone. Stepping in front of the Huskie receiver, Ramsey cradled an interception and headed for the home sidelines. Executing two ballet-like spins from the arms of tacklers, he sped 90 yards for one of the longest pick sixes in WHS history, boosting the score to 24-6.

Windham played turnabout on the ensuing kickoff, pooching a ball that barely skimmed ten yards. The stunned Cardinal receivers did not even have time to move before Ethan Thornton jumped on the loose pigskin at the Huskies 48.

Without even pausing to catch his breath, Thornton connected for his second reception of the game at the Cardinal 32. A DeJuan Ramsey reverse gained another 16, and two Smithberger keepers finished the drive to move the score to 30-6 with less than a minute in the first half.

(During the intermission, the Bomber Homecoming Court was announced. Outstanding female athlete Brielle Jones was voted Queen, and Ethan Thornton added a crown to his first half highlights as Homecoming King. Ethan plans to be a lawyer, and if he is as good at that as he is at sports, he could end up as the first Windham Supreme Court Justice.)

The second half was honestly just a race to see how quickly the Bombers could inflict the 30-point mercy rule of a running clock on the Huskies. It happened on their first drive.

Loudon Collins’s kickoff was returned to the Cardinal 43, where Collins added pass rusher to his resume, forcing a Huskies punt. Xavier Bruton, little used in the first half, nabbed a screen pass for eight yards, and then scooted around left end for 12, setting up yet more DeJuan Ramsey fireworks with a 45-yard Ramsey run to the end zone. The score of 36-6 triggered the running clock.

But to wrap up the game, King Ethan Thornton added one more gem to his diadem with a scoring interception on the next Cardinal drive, notching the score to the final total of 42-6.

Winning is a wonderful tonic, especially in a learning season like this one. Seeing Bombers like Thornton, Ramsey, Smithberger, Collins, and Sherman playing their hearts out like it was a Super Bowl is why Windham fans keep coming back game after game, year after year.

We know the boys have to return to the grind again the next two week at Mathews and the following week at Ashtabula St. John. Road games are never any fun. But this is the soft part of the schedule, and if Jake Eye and his coaching staff can keep the team healthy and optimistic, the Bombers have a very good chance of rescuing respectability from the painful lessons of the first part of the year.