The Hermon High School football team saw its perfect season evaporate Friday night in a close loss against a very strong Leavitt Hornet team from Turner.
The sting of the season’s first defeat for the Hawks was magnified by a questionable call at a crucial moment, with Leavitt being awarded the go-ahead and eventual winning touchdown on a play where the ball carrier seemed to fumble the ball before crossing the goal line.
A Hermon player recovered that would-be fumble, but the referees ruled it a touchdown and Leavitt went up 12-7 with under 6 minutes left in the third quarter. That ended up being the final score of the game, and Hermon finished its regular season 7-1 while Leavitt moved to 6-2. Both teams are now heading into the Class C playoffs.
And while Hermon could have headed home from Friday’s game making excuses after that questionable call, the Hawks’ head coach quickly set the tone for his team.
Hermon coach Kyle Gallant told his team in the postgame huddle that they could dwell on that play all they wanted, or they could realize they had other chances to win Friday’s game. And their focus quickly shifted to the task ahead of them in the playoffs.
“I’m huge on using the avenue of football to teach life skills and that moment is a great teaching moment of, life is not always gonna be cupcakes and roses,” Gallant said on Monday when asked about his team’s response to the call. “There’s gonna be something that happens in your life that is hard, and it’s how you respond to it.”
Gallant said that one play was just one out of 50 or 60 offensive and defensive snaps.
“I mean, you can dwell on it all you want, but at the end of the day we had our opportunities to make that not matter,” Gallant said. “And we just didn’t capitalize on that.”
He said he wasn’t naive to the gravity of that moment over the course of the game.
“But at the same time, there’s bigger picture things for my guys, and that’s for them to adapt and overcome,” said Gallant, who noted that he and his coaching staff didn’t put the players in the right spots to capitalize on other chances during the game.
He tries to provide a calm, cool and collected example for his players on the sideline, and that includes showing respect to the officials calling the game.
“But none of us are perfect,” Gallant said. “I have my moments just like every other coach in the world has their moments, but at the end of the day, I respect officials.”
He said he never wants to be complaining on the sideline or on social media about an individual play or call changing the outcome of a football game.
“I just don’t think that sends the right message to my guys,” Gallant said. “And it doesn’t fall in line with my values and what I want them to take away from their four years with me.”
That doesn’t mean he agreed with the pivotal call on Friday, but it did guide his reaction to it. He stressed that coaches and referees alike are human, and nobody is perfect.
“I know what I saw, but I can’t tell you what the ref saw, and that could have been something completely different, that they just didn’t see it,” Gallant said. “So at the end of the day, I’m not gonna dwell on it and I’m not gonna hammer them. And I’m not gonna cry about it.”
The same is true for his Hawks team, which is now eyeing a quarterfinal playoff game against Nokomis Regional High School of Newport.
“We’re just gonna play football,” Gallant added.
Hermon will host the 5-3 Nokomis Warriors. Hermon won the previous matchup between the two teams 27-20 on Oct. 17.
Gallant credited Nokomis for having “one of the best backfields in Class C” and said that getting the first loss of the year has his Hawks dialed in on what they need to do to get better heading into the playoffs.
“I think 7-1 going into playoffs, losing the way we did down there, makes you even hungrier,” Gallant said. “And I know that our guys are really kind of chomping at the bit to get the playoffs going.”