Manchester West football making strides in Bozoian's first season

When he took over as the head coach of the Manchester West High School football program, Tom Bozoian felt that 40 would be the magic number for the Blue Knights.

If they could get 40 plays out for this season, then the team would be in good shape in terms of depth for varsity games.

As of last Saturday's 50-0 loss to Hollis Brookline, West had a roster of 34 players.

"That’s difficult," Bozoian said. "There’s definitely an improvement. The attitude has been good. We’re not happy with (Saturday), but that happens. It wasn’t our best effort, but we were overmatched. They’re a good team. They keyed on (running back Jaymeson) Maheux and stopped us. We stayed in it in the first quarter, but after that, we gassed out."

Through seven games, West (1-6) has reached two milestones - Maheux, a junior, has already gone over a thousand yards rushing on the season, and with a 46-6 win over Pembroke on Sept. 30, snapped a 23-game losing streak. With one game remaining in the season, the Blue Knights have already scored more points than in each of the previous two seasons, despite being shut out the last two games.

There have been other improvements on the field that Bozoian and the coaching staff are seeing week to week.

"We’re competing at times in games, where you can see an actual football game going on, where in the past, that wasn’t happening," he said.

The players aren't the only ones trying to learn something new, as the coaching staff decided early on to implement the single wing offense for this season while West tries to figure out what kind of players are coming down the road. Only one other team in New Hampshire is running a similar offense - Campbell in Division III, and the way the Cougars run it is a little more spread out than the Blue Knights' offense.

"Campbell is running it different then us," Bozoian said. "They’re a little more spread out. We’re more like a wing-T. We were in tighter (to start the year). I was thinking something like this might fit for a transition period. Teams have to adjust to it. We need to work in the offseason on throwing the ball."

West should have plenty of players returning next year to take part in that offseason work, with half the roster made up of freshmen and sophomores. The Blue Knights lose just seven seniors at the end of this year.

"All our guys are young," Bozoian said. "I think the kids have bought into what we’re doing. We’re trying to teach them how to game plan. That hasn’t always happened. We’re encouraged."