Left to be Dragons, coming home as champions – Saratogian

CORTLAND, N.Y. — When athletes leaves for college, their heads can be filled with grandiose aspirations of winning championships, setting records and even maybe making it to the pros.

For many those dreams, or parts of them, don’t ever become reality, even while still having successful careers at their college or university.

On Friday, Dec. 15, the Cortland Red Dragons became 2023 NCAA Division-III Football National Champions, for the first time in the program’s history, after a thrilling, 38-37, win over North Central in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl 50. The team was littered with local athletes, coming from the Capital Region, and having competed in Section 2 during their High School playing days.

Similarly, those players, like many others from the team, set off from their hometowns with big dreams for while they were a part of the Red Dragons’ program, but even when those came true this season with a championship win, it still felt as if they had defied expectations.

“It was definitely something I had a vision of. I have a vision board and I keep a journal and I always just write down something I want to happen, so I always had ‘National Championship’ in there,” said Cortland senior wide receiver and 2018 graduate of Greenwich High School, Cole Burgess. “Now, I don’t know if it was something that I actually thought was possible, but I always kept it in there just to keep the hopes alive and I don’t know if anybody else really thought it was possible.

“I know my parents never really thought this was gonna happen and yeah, it’s like crazy to see it actually happen and seeing everybody’s reaction to it and their reaction shows you how crazy and how special it really is that we did that.”

There were nine, total players on the active, Cortland football roster that stemmed from days playing in the Section 2 landscape: Cole Burgess, Ashton Capone (sr., Saratoga Springs), David Romer (soph., Columbia), Anthony Luciano (fr., Shaker), Aaron Henry (fr., Cobleskill-Richmond), Alex Roca (jr., Queensbury), Hunter Hathaway (soph., Hoosick Falls) and Jeff Halusic (sr., Niskayuna).

After being crowned 2023, D-III National Champions, they got to return to the Capital Region for the Holiday break and end of first semester and their homecoming celebration may even top the one before they left for Cortland in the first place.

“Ever since we got home and ever since that game has been over with, texts from everyone started pouring in saying like, ‘congratulations’ and everything like that from a wide range of people and the ones that mean the…