Blazers to host scrimmage on Saturday morning at Wiseman

TORRINGTON – According to Torrington High School football coach Russell Stienmetz, the Blazer program had been wanting to get play clocks for Wiseman Field for several years now. 

It wasn’t until earlier this month that wish was made a reality.

Football 101, a not-profit organization who supports Torrington High School and who believes in giving back to the community, received an anonymous donation through the Wyoming Community Foundation to help pay for the clocks.

The Wyoming Community Foundation has a history of more than 30 years of “connecting people who care with causes that matter to build a better Wyoming.”

Once the donation was received, the team had a year to spend the money.

“It had to be a way that the football could benefit from what we purchased,” Stienmetz said. “Us coaches came together, and we wanted these play clocks for several years. When we go play some of our rivals, they have them. We enjoy using them.”

Stienmetz said the offense benefits from having them.

“The offense is a little bit more complete,” he said. “You know how much time is left, and you don’t have to wait for the officials to let you know time is running out.”

Stienmetz added it’s a confidence booster for the offense.

“We thought if we could get these for all our home games that we would benefit from those,” he said.

The clocks will be run on the field by the backfield judge and not someone up in the pressbox like most places.

“After talking with officials and working with Daktronics, who we have our scoreboard through, we came up with having the backfield judge on the field control them, unlike some places where it’s controlled up in the box,” Stienmetz said.

The clocks won’t be just for the high school football team.

“We are hoping the middle school will take advantage of them, and then we are trying to figure out how to utilize them for home track meets,” Stienmetz said.

The Blazer football program is already taking advantage of them.

“We’ll have them at practice for when we are doing two-minute offense drills and stuff like that so the players can see how much time is left and where we need to get to in that two-minute drill,” Stienmetz said. “We’ll be using them quite a bit.”

The clocks will be in use on Saturday at Torrington’s annual soap and towel scrimmage. This year, it will be held at Wiseman Field and is scheduled to begin approximately 9:45 a.m.