Football
Football
November 15, 2001
Battle for Island Cup Is Set for Saturday
Forget the season behind them; forget the playoffs ahead. This week, for the football squad and fans alike, Saturday's battle for the Island Cup - like many a legendary sports rivalry - is the only thing that matters.
Martha's Vineyard enters Saturday's game against Nantucket at 9-1, having already clinched the Mayflower League Large title. The Vineyarders have outscored opponents 180-40 in their last five games.
At 5-4, the visiting Whalers have had a disappointing season. But ending the trophy's two-year stay on the Vineyard would turn it into a successful one.
November 27, 1998
Vineyard Loses Nantucket Heartbreaker
As Vineyard coach Don Herman arrived at Nantucket’s football field carrying the Island Cup last Saturday, a couple of fans wearing Nantucket sweatshirts jokingly offered to take it from him. Coach Herman smiled politely, clutched the Cup a little tighter, and kept walking.
Nantucket’s team was finally able to wrest the Cup from the coach’s grasp, but it took all 40 minutes of the game to do so. In a brave effort, the Vineyarders came back from a 21-6 halftime deficit to tie the game before Nantucket prevailed by the final score of 27-21.
November 28, 1997
Big Win Sends Vineyard to Super Bowl
They completed an 11-0 season. They are league champions. And they have already danced with a trophy over their heads in front of a home crowd. Yet, there is still one element needed before the Vineyard high school football team can call this a perfect season.
A Super Bowl victory.
November 27, 1987
Coach Bob Tankard Resigns After Decade on the Sidelines
Robert Tankard is calling it quits after eight years as head coach of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football team.
News of his resignation, following a 27-14 loss to Nantucket Saturday, came as a shock to his players, football fans and the high school athletic department.
September 6, 1985
Bob Tankard Means to Win In Work with Vineyard Youth
Personal victories are what Bob Tankard cares about. He relies on them, he says, because they are messages that validate life and each person’s place on earth. Bob Tankard is the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School football coach.
He’s got the winner’s attitude and it just won’t quit.
When Bob Tankard says “I have a firm belief” or when he says “I mean it, I really mean it,” he clenches black hands into tight fists and squeezes his dark, merry eyes shut. His face forms a solid, peaceful expression.
November 23, 1979
Island Fans Face Chilling Winds, Traditional Foe
The end-zone boys were the only ones in or around the high school field Saturday afternoon who didn’t flinch at the negative-five windchill factor.
These hardies stood under the goal posts dressed in light sweatshirts and watched the Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard football teams battle up and down the hard-packed field. When the Vineyard broke a big gain, they threw their fists into the air and shouted approval.
October 18, 1963
Nantucket Lambasted
The Vineyarders chalked up their second win of the gridiron season last Saturday in a clear-cut 36-0 score over Nantucket High School. The regional’s outstanding defensive line, led by co-captain John Bunker, Tony DeBettencourt, Lennie DonAroma and Bob Norton, proved too much for the Nantucket gridders.
Offensively, Vineyarders took most of their yardage through straight drive plays. The Vineyard score consisted of five touchdowns, with Niemiec kicking for two extra points and Manny Nunes rushing for four.
November 16, 1962
Island Eleven Ends Its Best Season So Far
The Vineyarders closed out their most successful season to date with a sparkling 5-2 record, beating Nantucket, after beating them soundly the week before on the Vineyard. Gordon Bassett and John Bunker rushed the Nantucket quarterback, Vaughan Machado, in a second period pass play from the Nantucket 30. In a play described by Assistant Coach Francis Pachico as “The most unbelievable play of the year,” Machado threw the ball away, from about his own fifteen. Only he got turned around under pressure, and threw to his own goal line.
November 10, 1961
Football Team Too Slow in Warm-Up
The Regional High School football team went down to its fourth defeat of the season Saturday in a game with Nantucket at War Veterans’ Memorial Park in Vineyard Haven. The score was 14 to 8.
November 18, 1960
Nantucket All the Way
Having lost only one game out of six this season, the Nantucket High School football team came to Veterans Memorial Park Saturday and added still another victory to its record by defeating the Regional High School team 26 to 0. Nantucket’s power and experience accounted for everything, although neither of those qualities made any real showing until the final quarter, when the Nantucketers really got all gears meshing.
