Wounded Cardinals limping to finish line

When Mike Kelly was injured in the second game of the season and ruled out for the year, Bishop Guertin High School football coach Tony Johnson lamented the loss of a talented senior who was expected to be the offensive sparkplug, knowing his team had to move on.

If two is a coincidence …

When Peter Fucci, the speedster who the Cardinals were hoping to have replace some of Kelly’s speed on offense, was lost for the season after the sixth game of the year, Johnson searched again for someone to step up.

… and if three is a trend …

Joe McCarthy was next in line, and he too, went down with an injury. Next came Kyle Remillard, who made it through a couple of games at running back before getting hurt last week against Keene. Whether he’ll play in Saturday’s Division II championship game against Winnacunnet is still unknown.

… what is 37?

Bishop Guertin has potentially suffered four season-ending injuries to players who were – or were expected to be – leading the offense.

And that doesn’t even count the rest of the team.

“It’s an excess of 37 kids who have been hurt and missed games, plural,” Johnson said. “We have two starters who are freshmen. It’s deplenished.”

That number doesn’t include quarterback Steve Cuipa, who sat out just one game against Spaulding, and lineman Danny Folger, who has played everywhere this season.

“Danny Folger is now the center and he had never played center before this year,” Johnson said. “Never played there before the fifth game of this season. We moved him from tackle and guard because we wanted to find an anchor on the offensive line. We moved one of the guards out to tackle and we had to fill one of the guard spots and the best one we found was a freshman.”

Folger, who is a state-champion javelin thrower, has played most of the season with a muscle tear in his non-throwing shoulder. If the injury had been to his right shoulder, he’d be out for the season, too.

“You’re not going to find many kids who are going to tear something in their shoulder and still want to play the whole football season,” Cuipa said. “I love Danny just because we have someone to point out in the huddle if kids are sitting on the sidelines over something small. Go look at Danny Folger playing with a torn muscle. He’s hurt but he still plays on.”

Cuipa hasn’t been immune to the bumps and bruises either.

“He’s on one leg, one shoulder, one arm, one knee, one ankle,” Johnson said. “He’s beat to a pulp.”

The list of players who have made it through the season without missing significant time is a short one. Despite his shoulder injury, Folger is one of them, along with Jimmy Kemos and Nolan Cornell.

Andrew Crane had been another, but he, too, was hurt in the semifinal win over Keene.

“We don’t know if he’ll be able to go,” Johnson said. “The punter (Nick Pyzocha) and the kicker (Ryan Card), they’re healthy.”

So then how are the Cardinals playing for their third-straight championship Saturday? It’s helped to have what Johnson calls a flexible system that every player is taught from the first day he joins the team as a freshman. The continuity between freshmen, sophomore and junior varsity teams has allowed the players who have been called up to varsity to know what is going on around them.

But there’s more to it than just being able to understand the Xs and Os.

“It comes down to how big is that thing inside your chest,” Cuipa said. “Last year, we had more talent than ever before, any team that I’ve been a part of, at least. The guys definitely had love for the game, and heart, but this year, we needed even more heart because we didn’t have that amount of talent.

“We’ve just come together as one team and realized when one piece of the puzzle falls, we fill in another piece.”

Unlike a year ago, when Bishop Guertin went undefeated and didn’t play many close games, this season, the Cardinals have dealt with adversity not just in the form of injuries, but also in losses.

For the first time since 2008, Bishop Guertin lost to a division opponent and dropped back-to-back games. And in one of those losses, the Cardinals were shut out for the first time recent memory.

“Just because you have an obstacle in front of you, doesn’t mean you can’t achieve your goal,” Johnson said. “My mother always said a path with no obstacles probably doesn’t lead anywhere. This team really, because of the number of obstacles we’ve had to face, has done a phenomenal job in terms of taking control of their own destiny.”

That destiny will be revealed Saturday, when the Cardinals host Winnacunnet in the championship game. It’s the matchup many expected to see in the title game, and maybe Bishop Guertin took a different route to get there.

But now that the Cardinals are there, Cuipa wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I do whatever I can to play this game,” he said. “It’s senior year, it’s a championship. This is where you want to be. Obviously, you don’t want to be here with guys hurt, but we’ve had it all year and we’ve played well. We’ll play with the people we have and hopefully we win.”