Albany Herald People’s Choice Player of Year: Deerfield-Windsor’s Austin Cain has strong season

ALBANY — The only regret Deerfield-Windsor linebacker Austin Cain has about his senior football season is not playing for a state championship.

Cain, the Albany Herald’s People’s Choice Player of the Year, helped lead the Knights to an 8-4 record and a berth in the GISA Class AAA state semifinals.

“We obviously didn’t go as far as we wanted to,” he said. “We wanted a state championship at the beginning of the year. But we did come together not only as friends but as teammates on the field. We developed good chemistry. We had more fun doing that than we ever could have imagined.”

Football players have memories from their playing days. For Cain, his fondest was this past season was beating eventual state champion Westfield early in the season.

“They are the defending state champions … they are and they were,” Cain said of Deerfield’s 35-23 victory in September over the Hornets, who went on to win their second straight state title.

“We weren’t supposed to beat them, but we kind of ride together as a team, and that kind of transformed how we played the rest of the season.”

Cain recalled that he may have had 12 tackles in that game. Unfortunately for the Knights, Westfield exacted revenge against Deerfield-Windsor in the semifinals, beating the Knights 28-7.

Cain made a lot of progress in just three seasons. He didn’t start playing until his sophomore year when the coaching staff encouraged him to play. He has excelled at it ever since.

This past season, Cain registered 118 tackles for the Knights. He said that since the team lost a lot of players from the 2013 squad, this season exceeded expectations.

“Not returning as many starters as we may have liked, we exceeded expectations not only of ourselves, but what people thought we were going to accomplish,” he said.

As solid as Cain is on the football field, his coaches and teammates said he is an even better person.

“Austin is a tremendous football player, but even better than that, he lives his life the right way,” Deerfield-Windsor coach Allen Lowe said. “He’s a great leader and we’ve been blessed to have him in our program for the last three years.”

Austin Fallaw, a senior wide receiver for the Knights, said that Cain’s influence as a leader has made an impact on the rest of the team.

“He’s always been one of my friends ever since we came to Deerfield,” Fallaw said. “Just to see him on the field, he’s such a great leader and he’s so passionate about football. He gives off a good vibe to everyone else.”

Quarterback Tyler Lowe said Cain’s impact on the team can’t be measured.

“He’s always been the one,” Tyler Lowe said. “He’s always been the leader of the team. He pushes everyone over the summer and spring. He knew that we were all striving for one goal.”