As I sat down to take in the homecoming football game at Smithfield High School’s Boyle Athletic Complex on Friday September 27th, I was struck by the irony of the song blasting from the loudspeaker.
“I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh Lord.”
“And I’ve been waiting for this for all my life.”
If you’re from here and went to Smithfield High, you get it. The students and town had been waiting for this moment for all their lives. They’d been waiting for a packed house on a Friday night to highlight a sparking new turf field that is at last on par with some of the premier high school athletic facilities in Rhode Island.
They’d been waiting for an opportunity to show their Sentinel pride under the din of Friday Night Lights. Most of all, they’d been waiting for an opportunity to cheer for some offensive fireworks.
They got their wish. As the new day dawned on that cool Friday morning, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought the Sentinels would cruise to victory.
After all, the team was 0-2, and there was not a lot of optimism to be found. The only likely optimistic viewpoints that abounded were that it was homecoming, and the student athletes of yesteryear would be welcomed back to their alma mater with a dazzling array of athletic sights that was not thought possible just a few years ago.
In addition to the new turf field, there’s a new track, scoreboard, and press box that are very different from the black tar track and faded wooden edifices they knew.
In talking to some of the team members, I wanted to make the evening as memorable as possible through their play.
When asked what he thought the keys to victory were Senior Right Guard and Defensive End Joe Sala told me that the team needed to cut down on self-inflicted mistakes like penalties and fix the problems in the red zone (the area between the opponents 20-yard line and the end zone) that had plagued the team throughout its first two games.
Junior Jake Molis added that he felt the team needed to communicate better and that would enable them to be able to be more alert on the field. I came away from those conversations with the belief that I was in for a sloppy effort from the Sentinels personified by silly penalties and miscommunication.
What I got instead was the Aaron Archambault Show.
The Sentinels Senior Running Back was a one-man wrecking crew, continually bursting up the middle and leaving the overwhelmed Tollgate defenders in the dust. Most impressive is that two of Archambault’s scores were long scampers of 55 and 70 yards, one of which came after an ineligible man downfield penalty wiped out a long pass play.
Propelled by the power running of Archambault, the steady quarterbacking of Jackson Chamberlain, and an aggressive mindset which fueled them to attempt and convert several two-point conversions, the Sentinels rolled to an impressive 42-7 victory.
To cap off the impressive night for him and his team, Joe Sala was elected homecoming king during a halftime ceremony. Sometimes self-fulfilling prophecies don’t come to fruition, in the case of the Sentinels that was a welcome relief.