JOHN REYNOLDS PLAYER OF YEAR: Deerfield-Windsor’s Tyler Lowe has big season

ALBANY — Tyler Lowe was to Deerfield-Windsor football what a conductor is to an orchestra.

That was the fitting comparison that Deerfield-Windsor coach Allen Lowe came up when asked about his quarterback who also happens to be his son.

Like a conductor, a lot of what the senior did for his team wasn’t visible to the fans.

“What sets him apart is how he managed the game,” Allen Lowe said. “He probably wouldn’t tell you this, but he did a lot of coaching from the huddle to the snap of the ball. He knew when we checked and made audibles, he knew what I was looking at. In fact, there were times he was looking at me thinking we should audible.”

The younger Lowe served as the leader of a high-powered offense that totaled 5,390 yards and 37 points per game. He helped drive the team to within one play of a championship victory that would have further cemented his legacy at Deerfield-Windsor.

His efforts helped him garner The Albany Herald’s 2015 John Reynolds Player of the Year award.

On a team that had four 500 yard rushers, one of which scored 25 touchdowns, Lowe put up the most-impressive stats.

In 14 games, the signal-caller completed 59 percent of his passes and threw for 1,750 yards and 15 touchdowns. He also rushed for 545 yards and six touchdowns. His 2,295 total yards were the most for any player in the area.

“It was a fun ride,” Tyler Lowe said. “It was a great group of guys I was playing with. These friendships and these memories should last forever.”

Tyler Lowe couldn’t help but give credit to his offensive line and the skill players he was surrounded with.

“We had a great offensive line,” he said. “A bunch of veterans and we didn’t lose anybody from last year. You look at our skill guys and there were just so many weapons. We didn’t have that one guy, it was just a bunch of us who all did our part.”

In his two years as a starting quarterback, Lowe broke the Deerfield-Windsor record for single-season passing yards, career passing yards (3,879) and career passing touchdowns (33), but it wasn’t always that easy for him.

“It was a goal of mine,” Tyler Lowe said of the broken records. “I would check on it now and then, but it wasn’t something that consumed me. I really just worried about getting wins on Friday night for me and my team.”

In 2014, his first year as a starter, the Knights finished with a 9-4 record and made a trip to the semifinal game where they lost to Westfield 28-7. He said he felt more comfortable this season.

“This year was definitely easier,” he said. “I played a little as a sophomore, so that was good experience. Last year when I started it was a little rough, but I got good experience.”

The one game that stood out in Tyler Lowe’s mind as his favorite was the Knights’ 34-7 victory over Valwood. The victory clinched the region title and gave DWS home-field advantage until the championship game.

Tyler Lowe showed off his speed, breaking two runs of 70-plus yards. The first was a 75-yard run that saw Lowe evade multiple defenders before being pushed into the end zone by a Valwood defender.

“That was definitely a fun game,” Tyler Lowe said. “We jumped up pretty quickly and had some big plays on defense. It was a really exciting game all-around.”

Tyler Lowe said that he wouldn’t mind becoming a coach and following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who coached him in middle school. He could eventually use his own experience on the field to become the conductor of his own team.