Determination drove Bartlett's Puccini

It was Week 4 of the football season and Bartlett was teetering.

Coming off a season in which they missed the playoffs for the first time in nine years, the Hawks had dropped 2 of their first 3 games.

Complicating matters, they fell behind Batavia by a touchdown early in their fourth outing. The season hinged on how the offense would respond.

Though he finished the contest with only 61 yards rushing on 15 carries, Bartlett running back Andrew Puccini gave Hawks fans a taste of things to come that night by scoring his first 2 touchdowns of the season on runs on 27 yards and 1 yard to grab the lead.

“My coach told me it was going to be my night,” Puccini said. “That got me in the mood to really step up.”

Puccini's touchdowns sparked Bartlett to a 26-point first-half and a 40-22 victory. His scoring runs also signaled a decided uptick in what turned out to be a big season for Puccini and the Hawks.

The 5-foot-9½, 180-pound back was nearly unstoppable from that point forward as he led Bartlett on a 7-game winning streak, a ride that didn't end until the Hawks were eliminated from the playoffs in the second round by eventual Class 8A champion Maine South. Puccini was a central figure in an offense that scored 373 points in 11 games, breaking the school record of 365 set by the 2008 semifinal team in 13 games.

The senior rushed for 150 yards and 2 touchdowns against Lake Park a week later. He followed that up with his season-best performance of 225 yards against South Elgin, then 165 yards against Metea Valley.

After grinding out 61 yards and a touchdown in a key victory over Neuqua Valley, Puccini finished strong with big games against East Aurora (160 yards, 3 TD), first-round playoff opponent Dunbar (120 yards, 3 TD) and Maine South (107 yards, TD).

“When the coaches talked about what got us out of that early season funk we were in, we all agreed it was the way Puccini ran so hard,” Bartlett coach Tom Meaney said. “When he gets his knees up he's as tough as anybody. He gets that determination and he just wants it. He doesn't want anybody to take his job and he doesn't want anybody to do it better than him. He's just one tough nut of a kid.”

Puccini finished his senior season with 174 rushing attempts for 1,267 yards, a remarkable average of 7.3 yards per carry. He ran to the end zone 16 times, tying him for the most rushing touchdowns in the area this season.

For his excellent senior season Bartlett running back Andrew Puccini is the honorary co-captain of the 2010 Daily Herald All-Area team in the Fox Valley. He is the sixth player in Bartlett history to win the award and the first since linebacker Kyle Zelinsky in 2008.

“He's a little beast is what he is,” Meaney said of the 5-foot-9½, 180-pound running back. “He wants to be the best and he works hard in practice. He never says anything bad about anybody because he doesn't talk hardly. He's always pushing himself. I've got to think he's the hardest-working kid on the team.”

Puccini worked hard in the off-season because he had much to prove. Entering his junior season in 2009, he was thrilled at the prospect of becoming a varsity running back in tandem with Aaron Thabuteau. However, those plans were dashed a week before the season opener when Puccini suffered a high-ankle sprain in the preseason scrimmage at Millennium Field. He missed the first five games of the season.

“I was really looking forward to finally being on varsity, but I sprained it pretty bad,” Puccini said. ““It just made me want to play harder this year.”

Puccini never ran harder than the South Elgin game in Week 6, a contest that defined Bartlett's season. The Hawks entered that game against the undefeated Storm with a 3-2 record, but Puccini's 225 yards and 2 touchdowns on 15 carries gave the Hawks the inside track to the Valley Division crown. Bartlett won the game, 42-23, and went on to win a share of its fifth conference or division title in the Upstate Eight since 2001.

Puccini set the tone for that game in the first quarter. On what seemed like an ordinary off-tackle play, he kept his legs pumping and somehow escaped the grasp of three South Elgin tacklers in a pileup. He found daylight and raced 75 yards down the sideline for the first score of the game.

“I ran through a big bundle of people, kept driving, popped out and saw freedom,” he said. “I just ran as fast as I could. I don't even remember it. That game was such a blur.

“South Elgin was talking a lot and everyone thought we were going to get killed. When we came out and scored right away, I knew we were going to win from then on.”

The opposition can't help but offer a tip of the hat when deserved.

“Our whole sideline was saying we had him tackled, but he pulled away and scored,” South Elgin coach Dale Schabert said. “That's a lot for a running back. Very few kids can take that contact, run their feet harder and keep themselves alive and get the breakaway. He was able to do that. He kept his feet, used his arm to ward off the tacklers and slid off.

“He's a tough back and very deserving of the honor.”

Despite the second-round playoff exit, Puccini and his teammates were able to walk away satisfied after returning Bartlett to its familiar spots in the postseason and atop the UEC standings.

“I thought we could do it once we got into the playoffs,” Puccini said. “We did the best we could, but Maine South's a good team. Right after we lost we were disappointed, but right away we got on the bus and we started talking about how good of a year we had. We had one of the best records at Bartlett and we put up the most points ever.

“We were all pretty down, but after we talked about it we felt pretty proud of ourselves.”