Athletes of the Week: North Fork Football

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Up in Hotchkiss, Friday nights aren’t just about football for the North Fork Miners. It’s about a feeling.

“It’s a different atmosphere, man. It’s a different feeling. There’s no feeling like it in the world. Truly like I love it. It’s unexplainable. Like having the whole town here, seeing hearing your name on that speaker, it’s all amazing. So to have us all committed, to have us all wanting to win, that means so much more. It means that much more. And it puts that edge on us. You know, it makes us motivated. So we want to play together. We want to win,” Tight End and Linebacker Payson Miller said.

“Energy was really good. We came out hot, starting off with the fumbles, coming out of the kickoff, which was good for us,” said Running Back and Safety Alex Csere-Bitonio.

That cutting edge the team says they play with was on full display in the season opener against the Aspen Skiers. A 25-13 win for the home team, but outside of the winning result, the game was anything but typical. The Miners found a way to deliver on offense, finding the end zone a couple of times on defense with a safety and on special teams forcing the second safety of the game.

“Always, always, it doesn’t matter if it’s touchdowns on offense, defense, special teams. We’ll crawl our way to a victory. That’s what we’re all about. It doesn’t matter how. So if that came from special teams, from the safeties, you know, we’ll take that. That’s motivation for us. We love that,” Miller said.

“It just brought us back into the like. We brought us our momentum back,” Csere-Bitonio said.

While the scoreboard was busy, the players say the real work happened in the trenches with a rebuilt offensive line and a roster full of Miners players looking to strike gold this season.

“It’s amazing, really, man. This group that we have, it’s something special. I know everybody always says that, but really, this is we’re like a family here. Like we’re inseparable. We all got each other’s backs. We all we all ride for each other. So it’s really just amazing to see everything come together and see everything well,” Miller said.

If you have a local athlete or team you would like to submit to potentially be featured on a future Athlete of the Week, send nominations and a means of contact to Sports Director Garrett Brown at Garrett.Brown@kkco11news.com.