Football is a game of opportunity, Trinity High School football coach Rob Cathcart told his players during the team’s first practice.
The Pioneers’ roster is filled with opportunities after graduating a star-studded senior class that helped the team win its first NHIAA Division II title last fall.
Quarterback Ollie Service, running back Davey Durepo, tight end/kicker Connor Bishop and linemen JP Feren and Dylan Gartside are among Trinity’s key losses to graduation.
Senior captains Tate Zubhuza and Malith Malith learned a lot from those graduates and will lead Trinity in a manner similar to how they did.
“They never gave up to the point where it would instill even the younger kids to do it, so I was stepping up and I wouldn’t quit,” said Zubhuza, a wide receiver/cornerback. “I just want to be able to do that for these younger kids now and just fight to the very end.”
Zubhuza, a Manchester resident, spent the offseason working with several of the quarterbacks vying for the starting job Service left behind.
Danny Bergin, a junior captain and Hollis-Brookline transfer, and Chatham Flynn, a sophomore who transferred from Pinkerton Academy, are competing at quarterback with junior Ben Pena and freshman Colin Lochman.
Bergin played tight end at Hollis-Brookline but spent the offseason working with former Nashua South and University of New Hampshire quarterback Trevor Knight.
“I went to the field with them this summer — just trying to get rhythm down and timing,” Zubhuza said. “That’s been the hardest part. I have trust in our quarterbacks that they can get me the ball. It’s just about the timing, footwork and little stuff like that that needs improvement but we’re working on it.”
Center and kicker are among the other starting jobs up for grabs this preseason. Cathcart, who is entering his 11th year as Trinity’s head coach, held a punting/kicking drill at the end of the team’s first practice to figure out who can boot the ball.
The Pioneers, who open their season at John Stark on Saturday, Sept. 5, are young but they have a lot of talent, especially among the sophomore class, Cathcart said.
This year’s team reminds Cathcart of his sophomore-heavy 2021 squad that reached the Division III championship game. Jack Service, Ollie’s older brother, was Trinity’s starting quarterback that year and now works with the Pioneers’ QBs.
Trinity lost 50-14 to Pelham in that 2021 D-III title game, which was part of the Pythons’ four straight state championship seasons.
“I thought that was going to be a rebuilding team but we made it to the championship game and then just didn’t have enough to get by that Pelham team,” Cathcart said, “but then when they (those sophomores) were seniors, they won it and I think that’s kind of where we are this year. ...The goal (this year) would be, can we make the playoffs? And I think they have a good attitude to try to do that.”
Sophomores Mason Fay, a tight end/outside linebacker, and Tyler Gartside, Dylan Gartside’s sophomore younger brother who’s also a lineman, will be contributors alongside seniors like Zubhuza and Malith, said Cathcart.
Trinity also has other valuable returners on the offensive line like juniors Easton Valliere, a captain, and Griffin Kitchin and senior Zoe Monsengo, who will all start this year.
Malith, Zubhuza, Valliere, Kitchin and Monsengo are the team’s returning starters.
Cathcart has been honest with his players, telling them that they’re young and inexperienced and there aren’t high expectations for them.
The players feel like people are underestimating the Pioneers because of the talent they lost, Zubhuza and Malith said. That’s been a motivating factor for the young group.
“A lot of these rankings that people post, they need a bunch of changing, but we’ll let our game do the speaking,” Zubhuza said.
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