Normally as October ends, DeMatha is buzzing with energy and excitement as the football playoffs begin. And this year is no different. Do the Stags have what it takes to win the championship this season? Both players and coaches feel confident they do.

Bill McGregor, the head football coach at DeMatha, is very confident in his team to bring home a championship this season. Coach McGregor said, “Of course, guys work hard, they have a good attitude, they do everything that I ask, and I am very happy with the team and its enthusiasm.” He also says, “[The WCAC] is a dog fight from top to bottom.”

His goal is to be 1-0 each week, as they are only focusing on one game at a time, one week at a time.

Coach McGregor says that it is between “St. John’s, Good Counsel, Gonzaga, and us,” adding that “whoever makes the fewest mistakes will go to the championship game this season.”

Training has been going well, and McGregor says the team is “getting back into a normal routine.” 

“I can’t say enough good things,” Coach McGregor says. “Everyone on the team is vaccinated, from freshmen all the way up to varsity.” But he admits that this season came with struggles, saying, “This season was difficult, coming back to a normal routine and regime was not easy.” But at the end of the day the coach is excited for the rest of this season saying, “I’m proud of the team and the effort that my guys have put in.”

Senior guard and center Aidan Stair is very confident in the team. “I believe that we will be able to bring back a ring this season,” he says. Aidan is also looking at Good Counsel feeling good saying, “I believe that we will beat them again in the playoffs to advance to the championship.” He is also looking at St. John’s to “see what they are doing.”

The training throughout the season has been good but challenging. “We have been in person for a while. We were able to do stuff since the winter and I feel that we are used to it,” Aidan says. The chemistry within the team has improved a lot since training camp. “I feel that we are more of a brotherhood now than we were earlier this year,” says Aidan.

Junior tight end Riley Foran has “all the confidence in the world in our team.” He knows that if the team does its best, then there is no team that can stand in their way. “The sky’s the limit for us.”

After winning their game against Good Counsel, Riley feels great. He says, “We went out there and executed our game plan. We dominated on the [offensive line], which was key.”

But Riley still believes that the team has a lot more to prove and is definitely not overlooking the Falcons, saying, “We know they’re gonna give us their best shot. It’s a playoff game in the most competitive league in the country and we know we’re close to our ultimate goal. The team is not spending time wondering who else they’re playing, we’re just focused on beating Good Counsel.”

They are taking the rest of this season on a week to week basis. “We’ll focus on whoever we play after that when the time comes,” Riley says. 

Since the practices and workouts have started, the goal of the team was to win the WCAC championship and the team has put themselves in a good spot to get that done.” The chemistry has improved tremendously. “We’ve been through a lot of adversity that’s made us closer as a team now since we’re so close to our goal, we’re all more focused and together than ever,” the junior tight end says.

Riley says the coaches have put a big emphasis on “us being a team and playing for each other and that’s why we’ve been able to be so successful this season.”