Rivalry football games are something that is hard to stay away from. From Little League all the way up to the major league, NFL. Gloucester High School and York High School have had a long-going, highly-known rivalry called the Battle of the Bridge. Each year their high school football teams play each other once a year to battle out the win. The team that is the winner of the big game gets rewarded with a trophy to bring to their high school until the next year. 

This game is filled with fans from both sides of the rivalry. For the past couple of years, it has been the second most packed stands for them, homecoming being the first. Fans, students, parents, teachers, and everyone else who supports the teams attend and pitch into the hype. When Gloucester wins it at home, the stadium erupts in cheers and shouts of victory. The week following the game, the announcements focus on the big win and congratulate the football team. 

This year’s game was fortunately held in Gloucester, and they came away with the trophy. It was a close game through all four quarters, but when the clock struck zero, it was glory for the Dukes. The stands went haywire, and the student sections erupted, throwing confetti around, screaming, and jumping up and down. The final score was 17-14. It. Was. Electric. 

For the past couple of years, York has beaten Gloucester. The coaches got on the team about it, the players got on the other players about it, and they worked and worked to improve. They weight trained; They conditioned and after plenty of hard work, the trophy was taken home. Since we have won bragging rights, Gloucester has taken advantage of them.

The Battle of the Bridge game was a memorial for a lost teammate. Brycen Wermter was a 16-year-old junior at Gloucester High School. His life was lost in a jet ski accident on July 30th, 2023. He would have been playing this year, talking every day about how excited he was to play this year. The game went out to him and his loved ones. 

Gloucester had not won the game in over 10 years. As a result of the win, the players walked proudly off the field, the crowd going wild.  After the win, the team gathered to celebrate and take pictures. For many, the win didn’t seem real. And, for many years, the win didn’t even seem possible. But the varsity team proved that wrong. 

The varsity football team consists of Jacob Mazzuca, Preston Prentiss, Alex VanVranken, Keagan Chase, Tyler Welch, Jackson Taylor, Corey Skay, Shaun Carter, Derrick Carter, Jason Robinson, Evan Frazier, JR Jones, Sam Blittle, Austin Halterman, Trevor Burke, Colby Morris, Joe Fusicia, Connor Symonds, Xavier Johnson, Leland Webb Dyson, Jacob Turco, Dominic Davis, William Turner, Scott Klaiss, Isaiah Broughman, Blake Helms, Jacob Ammons, Drake Hall, Jaiden Long, Josiah Holmes, DJ Holmes, Michael Seda, Keith Shelton, Jaiden Long, Jasen Robinson Jr, Mohamed Erraji, Lincoln Phillips, and several others. 

This big team takes huge pride in winning any game, let alone winning a game that the team hasn’t won in over a decade. The team has been working on improving themselves to live up to winning games how they did that night. Overall, the game was a huge, successful win and didn’t go unnoticed and underappreciated.