Friday Night Lights Regular Season Wrap Up

  The 2025 Friday Night Lights on NBC Watertown season is wrapping up and we’re looking back at the year fondly. When Zach Zubrzycki and I sit down a month or so before the school year and start to talk about what games and matchups we want to cover, we can only hope for the type of season that we’ve had - close games, two overtimes, lots of touchdowns and some huge defensive takeaways.

   Our season started at my former high school, South Jefferson - where the Spartans lost a heartbreaker to Central Valley. South Jeff had a chance to march down the field and tie, needing a TD and a 2 Point conversion, but lost track of the situation and with no timeouts, spiked the football on 4th down.

  The trend of rough endings continued into week two, as we saw Beaver River give up a score with just seconds remaining, and despite a long kickoff return from Kayne Lyndaker, their last second Hail-Mary was batted down, falling just short against perennial Section III rival Dolgeville.

   Indian River ended the streak of home teams failing to take advantage of the home field, with a gutsy come from behind victory over Vernon-Verona-Sherrill. We always enjoy visiting IR, and this week was basically a test run for the next week’s broadcast.

  Week four was originally meant to see us stream two games, but the Lowville - Beaver River matchup was moved from Thursday to Friday, overlapping with our first televised game of the season - Indian River v Carthage. In anticipation of a good game between two longtime area rivals, we had made the decision to send this game directly to our master control and broadcast it anywhere our signal was available, and the action did not disappoint. Carthage was able to almost completely hold Indian River’s dual-threat of Trevor Shawcross and Ariel Raymond in check, and punched one in during overtime to triumph. We added a few things during this game, including a camera at field level which we used to interview both coaches at halftime, just adding a few extra touches to increase the quality of our broadcasts.

   Watertown was our next stop, and they - similarly to Beaver River’s loss - gave up a score relatively late in the game and were unable to respond, falling to Henninger. This game gave us one of the strangest plays we’ve seen in quite a while, as the Black Knights were lined up to punt on a 4th and long. The play clock dwindled down, reached 0, and stayed there for at least another 2 or 3 seconds without a whistle before Henninger snapped the football, faked the punt and rushed forward for close to 40 yards, setting up a crucial touchdown.

  We saw Watertown again as they traveled to Carthage for a Frontier League matchup the next week. This was a high scoring affair. Watertown answered an early Carthage touchdown to tie the game at 7, but Carthage were able to slowly put their foot on the gas and build a pretty substantial lead. After Watertown’s starting quarterback Jack Vespa left the game injured, receiver Mason Hurst threw for a touchdown and Tamier Thomas rushed for close to 100 yards in the fourth quarter.

  Next was our second televised game, General Brown and Lowville. These two Frontier League foes were both undefeated at 6-0 heading into the night, and the Red Raiders jumped out to an early 14-0 lead courtesy of two Cole Zubrzycki touchdowns, taking that advantage into halftime. The Lions responded in the second half, receiving the kickoff, scoring on the back of a long run from Cooper Donaldson, then recovering an onside kick and scoring again to tie the game. Lowville retook the lead after Toran Zehr snuck into the endzone for both the touchdown and 2 more. Those 8 points meant General Brown needed to match after their next score, and the Raiders were able to stop the 2 point try and win a hard-nosed smashmouth game.

  Our last regular season game of the year was some 8-man action between Thousand Islands and South Lewis, a rematch of last season’s first regular season game. Unfortunately for me, I had prior commitments with the Watertown Wolves, which meant that the old guard was back in action - Tyler Clemons and Zach Zubrzycki provided commentary for this exciting game.

  The two teams went back and forth, and needed overtime to separate them. After the Vikings had stopped the Falcons, they fumbled the football at the 1-yard line and this meant double overtime. This time, TI was able to punch one in and then get the stop, securing the upset victory at home.

            We have had a ton of fun this season, and are planning on covering at least one more game, potentially two if the opportunity arises so stay tuned to our website and social media platforms for that information! We also as a team have grown both in talent and numbers, as we cover more games and gain more experience, our product grows in quality and I am incredibly proud of everyone who contributes to what we’re able to produce. We obviously would not be able to do what we do without the financial support of all the sponsors we have, the Bob Johnson Auto Group is the presenting sponsor of any live event the team covers, but we are also grateful for SRT Restaurant Supply, O.D. Greene Ace Hardware, S&R Automotive, Adams Country Club, John Allen Sanitation, and SeaComm Federal Credit Union.

 

            So, one more time - For the NBC Watertown StreamTeam:

 

Codie Wheeler, Morgan Young & James Stump - our terrific camera operators who have to stand out in the cold all season and provide amazing coverage of the action

 Nate Matteson - for conducting sideline interviews during games and getting sponsors on board, cheering us on from home

Zach Zubrzycki - our technical director making sure the scores are correct, timeouts are right and commercials are running

Tyler Clemons - for filling in and providing play by play of Thousand Islands and South Lewis, making sure the game is playing at the Elks Lodge, and taking the time to talk with me about football seemingly every week for his show, Hometown Connections

Ron Rockwood, my always excitable commentary partner who provides excellent color and insight to our broadcasts

            And the rest of the NBC Watertown Staff:

Mark Gaines - General Manager - who green lights our endeavors
Eliza Urbaniak - Traffic Manager - for making sure we have up to date commercials
Eric Burke, Mike Irey & Kasey Maroney - Sales - Constantly working to get us sponsors

 My name is Connor LaLone, saying:

      “Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time.”

 

Make sure to check out the Live Stream page for up to date streaming.