Focused Bow hopes to finish making mark on D2 football

Paul Cohen has been around championship football teams before.

The Bow High School football coach saw the Falcons rise up from the No. 4 seed in 2004 to win the Division V title. In 2013, the program did it again, pulling off an upset Pelham in the first round on the way to a Division III championship.

Now, Bow is one win away from making history a third time, this time as the seventh seed in its first year in Division II. After knocking off No. 2 John Stark and No. 3 Hanover, the Falcons will take on No. 4 Plymouth in the division championship game at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the University of New Hampshire.

While those other title teams had what it took to go all the way, Cohen feels this year's squad has been different.

"There is a level of cohesion," the coach said. "It's the entire team. This team has a certain chemistry that, even the team in 2013, it wasn't quite the same. One of the reasons for their success is that they understand it's not about them individually, it's about them collectively."

The Falcons forged that attitude in Division III, where they were in the playoffs the last three years, but after winning it all that first season, they came up short the last two. But despite that, Bow still had more playoff experience than its first two opponents.

"Without a question, the fact that this year's seniors, some of whom were on the championship team, in a limited capacity, in 2013, they've had four straight years of playoff experience," Cohen said. "That cannot be discounted at all. They are aware of the pressure and how it's different from a regular season game."

It's Bow's regular-season game against Plymouth that has been on the players' minds this week. In the fourth game of the year, the Bobcats came to Bow and won 28-12, in a game that both sides felt could have easily gone the other way.

"My feeling is that we didn't play well enough and they took advantage," Cohen said. "I firmly believe if we had played that game the way we had played so many other games, it would have been very different. I said to them after the game 'do you want to see this team again?' They said yes. Providence being what it is, here we are."

Where the Falcons are is on the verge of adding another chapter to the history of the Bow football program, and surprising everyone in the state of New Hampshire.

Everyone, except themselves.