Portsmouth-Oyster River football ready to take the next step

Brian Pafford has been a part of the football program at Portsmouth High School for a while.

There have been ups and downs in terms of participation, including the decision to co-op with Oyster River before the start of the 2018 to increase numbers, but the last two seasons have been unlike any others that Pafford or anyone on his staff can remember.

A year ago, the ClipperCats started the season with over 90 kids in the program. Going into this summer, that number was expected to go over a hundred, and it did - and then some.

"It’s been nothing like this," Pafford said. "I’ve been here basically since 1981, and even the biggest years, it was maybe 90 kids. Last year, when we eclipsed that, that was amazing. I thought we’d be at 105 (in 2023). At one point, we were at 115 with the number of kids who had signed up."

The number has settled a little closer to 110, which has presented some challenges in the preseason, while the turf at Tom Daubney Field is being replaced.

"It comes with problems, but they’re all great problems to have," Pafford said. "I don’t know how to coach this many kids. We’re actually in two locker rooms. (We're) practicing on a 60-yard field with 110 kids, other than that everything is going great.

"We’re ahead of where we were last year with everything, which we should be because we have 75-80 percent of our starters returning. We’re in pretty good shape right now."

It's helped that Portsmouth-Oyster River returns over two dozen seniors from a team that made the postseason for the first time - outside of the open tournament in 2020 - since 2014. The year before, in 2021, the ClipperCats came up short of a playoff berth, losing on the final day of the regular season to miss out.

Those seniors see this season as their chance to take the next step, and maybe more.

"We’ve been through a lot as a team," senior lineman Max Durkin said. "We’ve lost a lot of important games and we’ve won some good games, too. This year, we have a solid group of seniors and most of us have been playing together since sixth grade.

"Now we’re here, it’s our last season playing together. Some kids will go off and play in college, a lot of kids won’t, but this is our last time together as a team and I think that’s really pushing us."

They've also been able to see what Pafford has seen early, that things are happening at practice a lot quicker than previous seasons.

"We’re moving a lot faster than we have in previous years," senior receiver Angus Moss said. "A lot of confidence. We came back bigger, stronger, faster. We’re a tighter group of guys now and that helps with any aspect of the game."

Durkin believes many of his teammates put in the work required of them, particularly in the weight room, even if it looked a little different than in past offseasons.

"We had some decent numbers in the team weight room, but those didn’t relate overall because a lot of kids, especially upperclassmen, were (working out) on their own time," he said. "As long as they’re working out and I think we had a lot of guys working out."

While Pafford would liked to have seen a few more players in the school's weight room, he knows there were too many to make that a reality. Plus, it's the type of thing that the coaches will be able to notice who did the work and who didn't once practice begins.

"I’d love to have them all here together at once, but there’s not enough room in the weight room," the coach said. "Twenty years ago, if you had 11 or 12 kids who lifted year-round, that was awesome. Now if you don’t have 35, you’re not going to cut it. If you count the number of kids who lifted and see their gains, you can tell they lifted."

The next step is seeing how it translates on to the field. If it goes the way the ClipperCats hope it does, it could mean ending up in a position they haven't been in quite some time.

"The first thing is getting in the playoffs, hopefully with the home-field advantage, because we haven’t had that in a long time," Durkin said. "Getting that environment up here as a school, with our student section, I think that would boost us a lot."