Tornado place area-best eight players on All-County team

Norwich changed coaches, but kept the continuity with its long-established winning tradition. Greene, meanwhile, laid another brick on the foundation of the most successful local football team over the past five seasons.

The Purple Tornado and Trojans combine for 14 of our 26 2009 Chenango County All-Stars as we unveil the best gridders from this past season.

Norwich stumbled out of the blocks losing its first three games, and was on the verge of dropping a fourth in its division opener against Windsor. A big stop near its own goal line prevented the Black Knights from scoring what would likely be the winning touchdown. Norwich went on to win in overtime, won five straight games, was unbeaten in division play, and the lone division champion among our six County teams.

“I couldn’t be more happy with the way things turned out,” said Norwich first-year head coach John Martinson, who served as an assistant coach under John Pluta for two decades before taking over the top position this season. “We had a rough start, but we learned what we needed to do to get wins.”

Norwich fell back on a strong running game and a stingy defense to win a quintet of games. Norwich’s starting backfield of Mackay Hotaling, Christian Hotaling, and Seth Thomsen all made our all-star group. Also on the team is returning all-star Andrew Austin, Alex Williams, Paddy Law, Mike Reilly, and Casey Edwards.

Greene won seven games for the third time in four seasons; however, its string of three straight playoff appearances was snapped. Nonetheless, Greene had the top scoring offense, gave up the least points, it averaged the most yards per game, and gave up the fewest yards per game. Not a bad result for a team that was perhaps as good as its previous playoff teams. “The biggest thing about this group of players is that they went 16-3 over the past two seasons, and you need to celebrate your successes,” said Greene coach Tim Paske. “That’s the best two-year stretch we’ve ever had here at Greene and something to be proud of. Maybe the expectations have gotten a lot higher. People were pretty disappointed, but if you look at it, we won seven games. We have set the bar higher for all future teams.”