High School Huddle Camp Tour: North Country Falcons

NEWPORT, VT – A year after their first championship since 1997, the North Country Falcons football team looks different. The team graduated 17 players and have a new Head Coach.

“A lot of those seniors have been playing together since like fifth grade, so they just knew each other, they trusted each other, they believed in each other, and they just kept plugging away. And when the plays needed to be made, there was nobody afraid of that moment,” said John Guebara, the Falcons new head coach. “I don’t want to say starting over. It’s just, people like to say, ‘Oh, are you a rebuild?’ We’re not rebuilding. We’re just reloading. You know, we just got to figure out different things.”

He continued, “we don’t have the kids that we had last year, but we’ve got kids that can do other things. And it’s my job and the staff’s job to make sure those kids are in the positions that they need to be in to make the plays,” said Guebara. “Hayden Boivin [is] going to be there at quarterback. [He’s] a dynamic player, he’s been on the scene for two years now. I’m expecting a bigger year for him this year, because he’s gonna get the ball a heck of a lot more than he maybe has in the past couple of years.”

“We’re a young team, but we’re still just as good as last year,” said North Country’s longtime quarterback, Hayden Boivin. “We have the the competition between us, you know, like we want to compete and we want to do what we did last year.”

“I feel this year’s team has a lot more athletes than what we had last year,” said Guebara. “We had a lot of football players last year, these guys are just athletic and just can get the ball in space and do some really amazing things.”

“Offensively, I think we just need to hone in our on our run game, because that’s always what’s driven us everywhere, is being able to run the ball exceptionally well,” said Jason Pelletier, a receiver and cornerback.

“You’re going to try to go out there and understand that everybody’s going to give you their best game. And you know, you’ve got to stand up. You can either stand up and fight for it, or you can just kind of wilt under the pressure,” said Guebara. “I’m hoping we’re going to stand up and be competitive and see what the score is at the end of the game.”

North Country hosts the first game of the season on Thursday, August 29 against U32.

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