The date was Sept. 15. It was Molly Wilson’s second varsity football game.
Rockville (Conn.) was playing SMSA. With a minute and a half to go in the game and Rockville trailing by a point, the Rams’ offense was stalled around SMSA’s 10-yard line.
Rockville coach Erick Knickerbocker looked down his bench at Wilson. Her one extra point attempt in the game had been blocked earlier, a blemish after going 5-for-5 in her debut against Windsor Locks a week before.
This would be her first field goal attempt.
“The special teams coach asked her, ‘Are you good from 30 yards?’ and she said, ‘Yes,’” Knickerbocker said. “That’s how you gotta be.”
Wilson is a freshman, the only girl on the Rockville football team, the first girl Knickerbocker has ever coached in football.
She lined up for the field goal. And she missed. Rockville ended up losing, 7-6.
“It was close,” Knickerbocker said. “Plenty of distance. Off to the right a little bit. The reaction by the boys – I didn’t even know because I was moving on, ‘OK, what do I have to do here’ – all the boys came over [to talk to her]. I feel like that was when she became really accepted as part of the team even though it was not for a good thing … they just responded so well to that.
“They were saying, ‘We could have done all these other things in the game to win’ … We all had confidence in her. I felt horrible after that because I put a freshman in this situation. I talked to her dad and he’s like, ‘No, this is why she’s here. She can do it. This is what she practices.’ I think that was a huge moment for us, even though it didn’t go well.”
Wilson has connected on 14 of 16 extra points for the Rams (3-1), who were the Class M runners-up last year.
“We’ve been lucky the last few years to have freshmen contributing,” Knickerbocker said. “But she’s a freshman and the fact that she’s got to break the gender barrier, that’s a lot [to deal with], but it doesn’t seem to faze her at all.”
Wilson started playing football in sixth grade after her father John urged her to try it. He had played on Rockville’s 1990 Class L state championship team as a sophomore; his twin brothers Jared and Justin also played on the 1995 Class L state runner-up Rams.
“In sixth grade, my dad brought me into the yard – I played soccer my whole life – and said, ‘Try and kick this and I did,’” Wilson said. “I liked it.”
So she signed up for football in Tolland, where she lives (she’s a vo-ag student at Rockville). She kicked and played left guard on the offensive line and right tackle on the defensive line. She didn’t play in seventh grade when the season was canceled due to COVID-19, but played last year.
Knickerbocker heard about her over the summer when her kicking coach tweeted something about Wilson and Rockville football.
“She’s a really good athlete,” he said. “She was kicking the first JV game - she was kicking off and she just came in and laid the kid out running [the ball] back. I was like, ‘All right.’ We had just seen her kick. I think she’s got a lot more in the tank.”
In the future, Knickerbocker would like to play Wilson in other positions but right now, she’s the only kicker he has.
Wilson plans to play basketball and lacrosse for Rockville this upcoming year. Football and lacrosse are her favorites.
“I feel like football was more kind of like a family,” she said. “I don’t know what I expected, I was nervous because of new school, new people. I didn’t know anybody. They’re all welcoming. Football is just different than other sports.”
