GREENE – You know the injury bug has snagged you when in the course of a nine-game football season, you're down to your sixth-string long snapper for punts and extra points.

"That was just an example of the injuries we had last year," said Greene head football coach Dave Gorton. "Not many high school teams go six deep for that position."

Not many, if any, teams on any level go six deep at punt snapper.

The 2013 Trojans season started promising enough with back-to-back victories. From there, Greene lost six of its final seven, and four of those defeats were by shutout.

A staple of the Class C playoffs for most of the last decade, Greene's eight-year run of winning seasons came to a close. "At the end of the year, we had more freshmen starting than seniors, and that's not usually a good formula for success," Gorton said. "But even though we didn't do as well record-wise, the young players did get a lot of experience, and are better prepared for this season."

After lopsided losses to Chenango Valley, Chenango Forks, and eventually Windsor to end the season, it would have been easy for Greene's young players to hang their heads and adopt a "woe-is-me" attitude. That was not the case, Gorton said.