MORGANTOWN — There were champions crowned Sunday as the Morgantown Youth Mohigans midget team won the Mountaineer Youth Football League championship 14-12 over Bridgeport on Stydahar Field at Lincoln High School.
The Mohigans ended their championship season with a 10-1 record. Their only loss came in week one to the same Bridgeport team they ended the season against.
“It’s a testament to the kids believing what they can do and continuing to work week by week to take those slow steps to get to that level,” Morgantown coach Zach Cook said. “Bridgeport’s been a powerhouse in football the last several years and I believe those kids never lost a game in youth football.”
Morgantown has only been in the MYF League for two seasons. Cook started the team last spring as a way to revitalize youth tackle football in Monongalia County.
“I saw all the other sports in this town evolve and develop and adapt over the last several years with travel and all that other stuff and football kind of remained constant and never changed,” Cook said. “My son was involved and I was helping coach so I thought this would be the proper way to take the next step for football in this town and for this community. Hopefully, it sets a foundation to grow the sport a little bit more in the future.”
The midget team is for kids ages 10-12. Morgantown also has a peewee team for ages 7-10 that made it to the semifinals in their age group. Other teams in the MYF League include Preston, RCB, Clarksburg, Buckhannon, Elkins, Summersville and Lincoln.
Through two seasons, Cook said the main focus of the team has been properly developing young kids to play tackle football.
“A lot of parents were nervous about tackle football and I think this is bringing to light the proper way to start and develop kids,” Cook said. “We kind of built on a little bit older values of developing kids and focusing on the process of development and the commitment it takes. Parents allowed us to push their kids a little bit harder than normal and kids bought in and developed.”
The proof of the development is in the pudding. Morgantown lost 27-0 to Bridgeport in their first game before rattling off 10 straight wins, including the 14-12 championship win over Bridgeport in the championship in just the team’s second year.
“We’re starting building blocks and came into that championship game as a heavy underdog,” Cook said. “We built from the first week all the way to that end week and it was great for the parents to see what we would be able to do.
“Year one was pretty much just a learning year. It’s a very competitive league, they take it very seriously. We kind of had to understand and to take our program to another level we had to commit a little bit more.”
Cook, who played football at MHS in the early 2000s, said there were 28 players on the midget team and 23 on the peewee team this year. After winning the championship, he said his next goal is just to continue growing the program for more and more kids to join.
“I think our next goal is getting bigger numbers and building this program to potentially having a might mite team so we have three levels of football to play,” Cook said. “Essentially put the spotlight back on tackle football and building that sport back up in Morgantown, where we used to be a powerhouse.”
TWEET — @CodyNespor
