Schuylerville's Ollie Bolduc embracing return to football after year away; more takeaways

A weekly look back at what we learned about high school football in the area over the weekend: Ollie's all in A year ago, the Schuylerville football team was missing a key ingredient, in the form of a speedy and versatile athlete: Ollie Bolduc, who had opted to prepare for a college career in lacrosse.

Now a senior, Bolduc is all-in with the Black Horses as the team's quarterback and free safety.

"I wanted to focus on lacrosse because that's what I want to do post-high school, play in college," said Bolduc, who has signed to play Division I lacrosse at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.

"Coming back, it's been awesome guys welcomed me back, coaches, it felt just like (before) I left." In Friday night's 69-27 win over Granville-Whitehall, Bolduc ran for two touchdowns and threw for another, and picked off two passes on defense.

Lanky at 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds, Bolduc showed his exceptional speed in the game, scampering for 137 yards on 11 carries and providing excellent coverage in the secondary.

"I was a little rusty starting, but it comes with the game," Bolduc said of his return.

"I feel like I'm pretty smooth now, and I just like being out there with my boys.

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I grew up with these kids all my life and these coaches; they do everything for us to win." Bolduc is part of a group of Schuylerville seniors who have played on varsity since eighth grade, and was a receiver and defensive back on the Black Horses team that went to the Class C state final as a freshman in 2021.

He's a three-sport athlete who also excels in basketball for the Horses.

"Playing with that team in 2021, a lot of experience on it, definitely helped me," Bolduc said.

"I'm just trying to get these younger guys rallied up to the speed that we're trying to play at, going for a state championship." Schuylerville football coach John Bowen is certainly happy to have Bolduc back in the fold.

"He's been outstanding he's been a tremendous addition," Bowen said.

"I've had some great football players here over the past decade, but he might be the number-one, on the Mount Rushmore of athletic IQ of any kid that I've ever coached.

"That's what he brings to the table he's a general out there, both on the back end of our defense and what he does for us offensively," Bowen added.

"He's a well-studied kid there's very few people that watch as much film as he does in preparation each week.

He does all the right things.

It's huge having him back." No quit in G-W Granville-Whitehall had few answers for the overall speed of Schuylerville in the first half Friday night, as G-W found itself quickly down 14-0 and trailing 48-0 at halftime.

However, the team struck back in the second half, getting an 80-yard touchdown pass from Trey Mason to Tommy Barber right out of the gate.

The next time G-W got the ball, Mason connected with Barber for a 70-yard score on the first play.

Then G-W recovered the onside kick, and two plays later, Mason found CJ Monty over the middle for a 24-yard score.

Four offensive plays, three touchdowns for G-W to close within 55-20.

"This team is special," Monty said after the game.

"We dont quit when things aren't going right." "I asked them to fight in the second half, and they fought, so I'm very thankful with how they came out and kept on playing," said Kevin Gebo, G-W's second-year head coach.

"They battled, they kept on playing I have nothing but great stuff to say, how they didn't quit." Cleaning up penalties Warrensburg-Lake George is hoping to go places this season.

A 48-0 Class D shutout of Cambridge-Salem on the heels of the Wolverines' 30-28 win at Schuylerville on Sept.

20 still showed the coaching staff things they need to work on.

We've got to clean some things up, especially with some penalties," said head coach Mike Perrone, whose W-LG team was ranked third in the state last week.

"That has never been us in the history of our merger and even before that, we have a been a very little-penalized team.

We have to get into the film room and see what happened.

That was frustrating for us to hurt ourselves." But Perrone was very happy with a lopsided win over a historically strong Cambridge-Salem program, which won state titles as Cambridge in 2016-17 and played for another in 2022.

If you had told me in 2016, 2017 or 2018 we would beat Cambridge-Salem and be upset after winning 48-0, I would never have believed it," Perrone said.

"But that is the standard of where we want to be as a program.

For us, it's not about the score of the game, it's about chasing perfection in our execution.

We want to chase perfection and (Friday) we were far from it." Mistakes hurt C-S Longtime Cambridge-Salem coach Doug Luke was pleasantly surprised when his team opened the season 3-0, but Friday's loss to the Wolverines was a bit of a lesson for his young team.

"They thumped us, and hopefully we learn something from it," Luke said.

"It wasnt a big surprise we knew what was going to happen here.

These guys were good.

We can make excuses all day, but they were bigger, they were faster and they know what they were doing." Overcoming the mental and physical errors is often a season-long process in football.

"We were in the right spots at times and just got run over," Luke said.

"We have to look at the film and see what happened.

It's all about doing the little things, and hopefully if we do get to play these guys again, we can make it a little bit more respectable.".

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