Dorchester Times: DHS Sports Wrap-Up: Football Season Ends After Loss To Sterling

Friday, October 19, 2018

DHS Sports Wrap-Up: Football Season Ends After Loss To Sterling

DHS Football Concludes 2018 Campaign: The Dorchester High School football season has come to an end following a lopsided loss to Sterling, one of Nebraska six-man's best teams. On Friday evening, DHS traveled to No. 10 Sterling, where the final score ended in a 67-29 loss for the Longhorns. Dorchester ends its first season of six-man football since the 1950s with a 3-5 record. While the season ended on a downer, it was pure delight to see football back at Nerud Field this fall, with standout plays from some real up-and-comers, as well as some great seniors. Moreover, it was inspiring to see the community rally around a group of dedicated young men who played for their own school and who were tough enough to learn the game -- and take a few bumps and bruises -- without consolidating with another school or two. We congratulate the Orange and Black for representing their school and community very well.

Volleyball Team Prepares For Final Regular-Season Game: DHS' volleyball team is preparing for its final game of the regular season. The Lady Longhorns will take on Class C2 Tri-County this Tuesday, Oct. 23, at home. The 7 p.m. contest (6 p.m. JV) will also be Parents/Seniors Night at the DHS gym. Dorchester is 11-13 on the season. DHS went 1-1 in the Crossroads Conference Tournament in York, falling to McCool Junction for the second time this year, but beating Osceola for the second time, as well.

Friend Newspaper Features Story on DHS Football Reunion: The Friend Sentinel this week published a story on Dorchester's Aug. 24 kickoff game and its halftime ceremony honoring DHS six-man players from the 1950s. The story notes that "it wasn’t just players who managed to come together during the event. Their former coach, Bill Story, was also in attendance. Story, who is 86 years old, walked onto the field and took his place beside the men he’d once coached and mentored." The article notes that "for Story, coaching the Dorchester team back in the 50s was his first job out of college." Story told the newspaper: “Football at Dorchester was just kind of like the university [University of Nebraska]. It just never stopped, and everybody was behind it.” The story also quotes former DHS player Vern Johnson, who organized the reunion. His great-nephews, Cole Johnson and Ben Nohavec, are current players for the team. Current DHS head Coach Brent Zoubek told the newspaper that the season has been a success, especially considering 18 of the Dorchester boys had never played high school football. "I define success as bringing our boys closer," Zoubek said. "Better academics, better leader qualities, less discipline problems, and it’s all because of bringing football back."

2 comments:

AnonymousOctober 20, 2018 at 8:02 AM
Current or Alumni, it's always good to be a Longhorn!
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousOctober 24, 2018 at 6:43 PM
build it and they will come
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.

Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."