EASTHAMPTON – The eighth edition of the battle of the Hamptons kicks off Thursday morning at 10 a.m. as Northampton (0-9) travels to Easthampton (6-4) with both teams looking to claim a “first.”
The Blue Devils want to pick up their first win of the season, while the Eagles have their sights set on their first win against Northampton on Thanksgiving – they’re 0-7 since the Turkey Day matchup began in 2015.
Easthampton head coach Kyle Dragon has done nothing but motivate his team ahead of his first-ever taste of the rivalry game as a head coach. Dragon wrote “222-80” for his team to see every day before practice for the past couple weeks. Those numbers allude to the combined score of the first seven meetings between the teams on Thanksgiving Day, with Northampton holding the massive advantage.
“We are the better team this year, and that’s not taking anything away from Northampton and coach (Joe) Kocot,” Dragon said. “They’re gonna coach well against us, I know that right now. But we’ve said going into the last two weeks that this is our year to finally bring a Thanksgiving Day game win back to Easthampton. We’re going to play our game, definitely, but there could be some surprises coming in that might not be familiar to them over there.”
Kocot has been a long-time coach in western Massachusetts (including at Easthampton from 1998-2014), and he even coached Dragon’s kid for a few years. Dragon isn’t going to take for granted standing opposite of Kocot on the sidelines during Thursday’s game.
“I got a lot of respect for him, and I’ve known him for a long time,” Dragon said. “He coached at Easthampton back in the day right after I was there. He coached my son up until his junior year, and I think he’s been a great coach overall for as long as he’s done it.”
The two sides have had vastly different campaigns entering Thursday. Northampton was terrific a year ago, qualifying for the MIAA Division 4 state tournament and capping off its season with a 41-14 win over Easthampton on Turkey Day 2022. The Eagles, however, started 4-1 and had a state tournament appearance in their claws before losing two of their final three regular season games.
The Blue Devils have dealt with nonstop roster turnover throughout 2023, but they’ve found a way to put forth their best effort during practice this week.
“It’s been a tough year,” Kocot said. “We’ve dealt with a lot of illnesses, and when the losses started adding up, we had a ton of kids quit. Our numbers are down, but give credit to the kids who are still out there practicing every day. And to be honest, this week leading up to Thanksgiving has been by far our best week of practice the whole season.”
The terrific turnouts this week can be credited to the fact that Kocot and the coaching staff have lit a fire under the Devils to finish the underwhelming season on a positive note. But the Blue Devils also know what it means to play against Easthampton, and that’s where their late surge of motivation has come from.
“I think it’s both. The coaching staff and I have brought it up to them that we can’t keep doing what we’re doing,” Kocot said. “We’re knocking our head on the wall. Things aren’t changing. Kids are missing practice for non-excusable reasons. I talked to the seniors, and we all got together and said we can’t have that this week. It’s our last game of the year against Easthampton on Thanksgiving. Let’s go out with a bang. So give the kids credit for showing up this week ready to go.”
Easthampton’s play-style is a bit unique compared to other programs in the region. The Eagles don’t lean heavily on one or two guys to be the traditional workhorse, they instead use four different playmakers to keep defenses off balance with a potent attack.
Topher Reardon (running back), Luke Johndrow (running back), Tommy O’Connor (wide receiver/hybrid back), and Colin Hogan (quarterback) are the main weapons for the Easthampton offense, a unit that has averaged 40.5 points per game in its six victories.
“It’s been a three or four-headed monster for us this year,” Dragon said. “You have teams that only have one kid that rushes for over 1,000 yards, but we have 1,998 rushing yards between three guys. We spread it around a lot, but we also have over 500 yards passing out of a run-heavy offense. The leadership from them has been amazing all year long.”
For Northampton, Mykal Norris is a Swiss-Army Knife type of player who can run the ball, line up out wide at receiver, and even play some quarterback if needed. Marty Maslowski is the main quarterback and also is a force at the safety position defensively. These seniors are the go-to guys and can hit big plays – they were also key pieces on last year’s 8-2 Northampton team.
“They’re great kids that have put a lot of effort in,” Kocot said of Norris and Maslowski. “We had times where we had 18 kids dress in games, and we had a lot of freshmen play in those games. These two have been great leaders for us, they’ve hung in there and show up every day.”
There’s no question that the football being played is going to bring joy to both communities as the game always does. But one man will be missing that has made this event what it is since it started – Matt Bean. The former Easthampton head coach passed away in July, so Thursday marks the first time in which this tradition won’t feature Bean with a headset on calling plays for the Eagles.
In his honor, Dragon asked Bean’s two sons, Kyle and Jared, to join the team on the sideline for the game.
“To Coach Bean, family was huge, and Thanksgiving was a big day for him,” Dragon said. “He always had his boys on the sideline with him, so I asked them to be with me on the sideline this week. I knew how much Thanksgiving meant to Coach Bean and his family, and he really loved having his kids on the sideline with him. So they’re gonna be down there with us.”
Kocot spent a ton of time working directly with Bean when Bean was the 7th and 8th grade coach while Kocot was at Easthampton. Kocot won two Super Bowls with the Eagles, one of them (in 2010) had a lot to do with Jared Bean and his standout play on both sides of the ball. He recognized that the Eagles have much more to play for Thursday than just next-door bragging rights.
“First of all, it’s an absolute tragedy,” Kocot said. “Loving family, great guy, great coach. He was the youth coach when I was the varsity coach, and when I left he became the head coach of varsity. They’re playing for something more than just winning over there on Thursday. They’re playing for their former coach who they loved dearly, as they should.”
