It has been a difficult two weeks for the Colon football team, which knocked off Howe Military in Week 1 and benefitted from a Covert forfeit to start the year 2-0. But an off week was spent regrouping after two devastating injuries rocked the program.
Ronny Moyer
Junior fullback and middle linebacker Ronny Moyer went down with a left knee injury against Howe. The MRI results Thursday weren’t good, showing damage to his anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus, Magi head coach Darrin VandenBerg said. Moyer will have to undergo surgery and will miss the remainder of the year. As a freshman in 2011, his left knee was operated on to repair his ACL, MCL and meniscus.
“He’s pretty upset,” VandenBerg said. “Every year has been a struggle for him. He’s struggling; it’s hard for him. I feel bad for the kid. He’s a great kid and works hard. He was our workhorse. You can’t replace Ronny, but we have a few kids that are doing a nice job.”
Since the varsity did not play last Friday, starting sophomore wingback/cornerback Brandon Hinkley went down to junior varsity to get some time in against Climax-Scotts. He suffered a serious concussion — the third or possibly fourth of his career per VandenBerg — and is likely done with the game for good.
Brandon Hinkley
“To be totally honest, he’s probably not going to play football ever again,” VandenBerg said. “Doctors say no more. He agreed and understands. He’s at all the practices and coming to all the games; he wants to be part of it. But he’s done. That’s it. This one was not good. He was not protecting himself and took a pretty hard hit to the head. We feel bad for him. He’s a good kid, smart kid. He was able to help the other wingbacks out and he was a starting corner on defense. He would have really helped us out the rest of the year.”
Gabe Keely was brought up from JV to take Hinkley’s spot at wingback. Junior Bailey Tyler moves over to fullback and freshman Zach Greenwald will take over at middle linebacker end to fill the void left by Moyer.
VandenBerg explained the series of events took a serious mental toll on his squad this week while it prepared for Friday’s trip to Bellevue (1-1)
“We’re definitely ready to play a game,” he said. “It’s like the beginning of the season when you haven’t played a game yet and you’re just ready for some fresh meat. We had a good practice tonight, which is good, because he hadn’t necessarily had good practices this week. We’re pretty confident defensively we can stay in the game. Offensively it’s going to execution and doing their jobs and limiting our mistakes.”
Scouting Bellevue
Colon beat the Broncos 21-18 last season, but Bellevue is probably slightly favored this year. The Broncos dropped a 20-6 decision to Adrian Madison last week.
“Bellevue is big, very physical, fast and their defensive ends are both 6-foot-4,” VandenBerg said. “They have a tackle that’s about 6-4, and they’re all about 220 pounds. Their tackle, Cole Madry, is supposedly a DI prospect. I went and watched Bellevue last week and they were physical. That being said, I think we matchup fine with them; we have a good game plan. I think we’ll know what they’re doing most of the time.
“They play kind of a pistol, similar looking offense as us. They have two wingbacks most of the time, two split ends. Quarterback is in more of a shotgun than a pistol, but they still have the tailback behind the quarterback. They like to run mostly sleep. They do motion and sweep way outside 70 percent of the time.”