Sporting News CT – SNCTTV

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September 16, 2010 - The Guilford Indians and the East Haven Yellow Jackets opened the 2010 football season last night with the Indians rolling to a 27-6 victory. Guilford chewed up over 215-yards on the ground led by Jr. back Matt Hoey 112 yards and two touchdowns. Indian QB Ethan Curry rushed for 63-yards, aTD and threw a touchdown pass to Will Stitilis.

The Yellow Jackets put 6-points up on the board in the 3rd quarter when Sr. QB Niko Fiorillo hooked up with Jr. receiver Mike Vessicchio on a 30-yard pass for touchdown.

The Indians play West Haven next week while East Haven battles Amity.

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To whom much is given, much is required." - John F. Kennedy

People forget that prior to last fall, the Notre Dame football team was coming off three consecutive losing seasons, and many people (including someone whose picture lies somewhere on this page) didn't really believe that last season was going to be the one that the Green Knights returned to glory.

Of course, 20/20 hindsight shows outstanding lines on both sides of the ball, speed to burn, and an outstanding leader and winner in Conor Keniry.

Notre Dame hopes that there won't be any hindsight needed in December. They will begin the season this week No. 1 in the Courant poll, the Register poll, the WELI poll, and - presumably - the Gallup polls.

Rumors of their preseason beatdowns of other traditional powers have spread like wildfire through the football underground.

But, unlike last season, the hype comes with a giant target on their back, one that Notre Dame will have to embrace if they want to avoid the snipers.

"We don't talk too much about last season," Notre Dame coach Tom Marcucci said. "It's a new story, a new group. We graduated eight starters on offense, seven on defense. We have some skill players back and we have some talent, but it is a different team."

No one will be feeling the heat more than senior quarterback Sean Goldrich, because he's the most heralded player returning from last year's Class L title squad, throwing for 20 touchdowns with just 1 interception last season and completing nearly 69 percent of his passes.

However, his role will almost surely be increased this season. Goldrich never threw more than 15 passes in a game last season, and although the Knights should still run plenty, there will be times where the game may rest on Goldrich's strong right arm.

"I just want to win games, that's what's most important to me," Goldrich said. "I know interceptions will happen from time to time, so I'm not worried about it. Coach (Marcucci) has told me we're probably going to throw a little bit more, which is obviously exciting as a quarterback, but as long as we're winning, I'm fine."

You want an example of how things have changed for Goldrich? At a recent visit to Notre Dame, I was told I couldn't talk to him. After explaining that it was set up through Coach Marcucci, the message came back, "Well, he can't talk to college coaches during school."

For whatever reason, major colleges have been slow to warm to Goldrich. He had looked at Iowa, but they grabbed another QB. The same appears to have happened at Villanova.

What makes it doubly strange is trying to find someone with something negative to say about Goldrich, either on or off the field, is darn near impossible.

"In my opinion, he is a Division I quarterback," Marcucci said. "He has a big-time arm and he's faster than people give him credit for. He's a good runner. And he's a fantastic kid. He does everything the coaches ask, and it's always the team first."

You can tell the college thing stings Goldrich a little, but while he's not exactly a tragic figure, he has had his share of adversity growing up in West Haven.

When he was in seventh grade, his mother, Tara, died suddenly, and therefore never saw him play a down in high school.

"It dawned upon me a couple of times last season," Goldrich said. "It was a little emotional in the playoffs that she couldn't see the success that we had. In the end, although I wish she could be here, it's nice to know that there's someone up there looking out for me, and she'll always be a big part of who I am."

You want weapons? Goldrich (who somehow didn't even make first team Division I last season, as he was beaten out by Xavier's Alex Pace, Hamden's Jason Lassiter, and Cheshire's Greg Palmer) has weapons. Phil Bentley and Tirrell Young-Williams, who each had big plays in big games last season, were 1-2 in the 100-meter dash in Class MM track last spring. Running back David Rose was not spectacular, but consistent and should be stronger with a year of experience under his belt.

Sometimes it's not the most fun position to be in, anything but a repeat as state champion will likely be a disappointment.

However, it certainly beats having a losing record.

"We have a lot of things we can still do to get better," Marcucci said. "This won't be easy."

STEWART LEADS FALCONS: As of Sunday, there was only one name on the MaxPreps roster for Xavier: Graham Stewart.

The linebacker spurned UConn (yeah) and Syracuse (boo) to play at Boston College, ending a fairly contentious recruiting period and allowing him to concentrate on football.

Stewart and fellow linebacker Austin Ahern are among the top 10 recruits coming out of Connecticut this season, which alone means the Falcons should be a handful (Just YouTube Stewart and you'll see some pretty good hits against Division I opposition).

Xavier also won their final nine regular season games last season, including a win over Notre Dame, before giving Staples all it could handle in the Class LL semifinals.

But it was a strange season for the Falcons defense, which posted three shutouts and nearly had two others, but was run off the field by Wilbur Cross (37-19, their only regular season loss), and gave up 20 or more points five times, including to Staples.

Will they have enough to unseat Notre Dame atop the SCC? We won't have long to find out, will we?

EXTRA POINTS: Tony Martone returns to Hamden, and he might have his work cut out for him with a brutal schedule and losing 24 players to graduation. He does have running back Jordan Teague (who, strangely, didn't play any running back in the final scrimmage against Greenwich) and he should have enough athletes to be competitive. But how competitive? ... Yea, I was the one that put Cheshire 8th in Division I to start last season. All they did was win the Class LL state championship. Oops. I'm semi-inclined to look at the fact that they look likely to use two quarterbacks again (Michael John Ecke and Max Slade) to prove that the might have some problems, but it's worked for them in the past, and they should have enough talent to be in position for a possible playoff berth ... Shelton will be without Mike Georgalas for its opener against Wilbur Cross after he was ejected from last Thanksgiving's game against Derby (the CIAC never forgets). They will also miss Ryan Deangelis for the season with an ACL tear, so the Gaels may take some time to get going, and that may be enough to cost them a postseason run ... Wilbur Cross has Dontay Long (QB) and James Ward (RB), but it's hard to tell what else this early. Last season, they started with an 18-point win at Palmer Field, but later in the season lost by 24 points at home to West Haven. They finished 5-5, and you expect you might see more of the same this season ... Hand has some players returning, but it's hard to see them having the athleticism to keep up with the Notre Dames and Xaviers of the world ... West Haven is another mystery, they haven't looked particularly good in the preseason, but they never do, do they? ... Fairfield Prep and Amity, both with new coaches (Tom Shea and Bert Mozealous, respectively), appear to be swimming upstream in Division I, at least for this season ... Couldn't fit this into Inside the Numbers, but the least amount of points Notre Dame scored last season: 28.

Check us out on Twitter, www.twitter.com/currenscc. If you have any story ideas or scores you want to get across, let me know.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

GAME OF THE WEEK

Xavier at Notre Dame, Friday, 7 p.m. - By all preseason accounts, this should be the game of the season as well in front of what figured to be a giant crowd in West Haven. Is Notre Dame's offense that good? Is Graham Stewart that good? Is the SCC that good? All questions we've been waiting months to answer will finally begin to be come this week, thankfully.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

32

Number of playoff teams in the CIAC football playoffs this season, up from 24 last season. Seeing that I was one of the ones that was pushing for a change, obviously I like it, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. I surmise there will still be some teams that feel they should get in and don't, but that's the way it goes.

D-I POWER RANKINGS

1) Notre Dame (11-1; Opener: vs. Xavier) – Knights don't have to leave West Haven until October 22. Nice scheduling.

2) Xavier (9-2; at Notre Dame) – Have to survive ND and Cheshire (both away) in the season's first three weeks.

3) Cheshire (11-1; at Hamden) – Usually, they lose to Hamden, then go on big win streak. Tough to do that this year.

4) Shelton (7-3; vs. Wilbur Cross) – Won last six games last season, will know much more after Friday's opener.

5) Wilbur Cross (5-5; at Shelton) – Ward will take them as far as he can, but he's going to need some help somewhere.

6) Hand (5-5; at Fairfield Prep) – Less cool storylines for opener, same amount of rush-hour traffic on I-95.

7) Hamden (7-3; vs. Cheshire) – Dragons don't play Wilbur Cross this season. Seems kind of wrong, doesn't it?

West Haven (5-5; at Amity) – Fairly kind opening to schedule may give the Westies much-needed confidence.

9) Amity (3-7; vs. West Haven) – Mght be a little bit of a rough start to the new regime, but they'll battle in D-I.

10) Fairfield Prep (0-10; vs. Hand) - Well, it really can't get much worse, can it?

In retrospect, Jeff Bevino's initiation into the Southern Connecticut Conference may have been a clear violation of the CIAC hazing policies.

Bevino - coming from a winning program at Notre Dame of Fairfield - and his 2006 Foran team was beaten, battered, and ultimately left winless behind a young quarterback named Jake White.

Perhaps the ultimate humiliation came on Thanksgiving of that year, when Law - only two years removed from an 0-10 season of its own that saw them outscored 462-53 (yes, those were the pre-Cochran Rule days, people) that included a 43-0 loss to Foran - crushed the Lions 47-0.

"My first year, sometimes we had 18 healthy players, it was difficult," Bevino said. "It wasn't fun to get beat up like we did."

The next year, Bevino grabbed a couple of wins over Derby and East Haven to go 2-8, and in 2008, had what many people considered a dream season, finishing 7-4 behind a now veteran White and speedster Tyler Hames, who transferred in from Arizona the year prior.

But last season, White and Hames had both graduated and it looked like it might be back to Square One for the Lions in the brutal SCC. Nope.

Led by a previously unknown quarterback, Tucker Schumitz, and some gutsy play, Foran finished 6-4 and beat Law on Thanksgiving for the second straight year.

"We were really two points away from being 8-2 and looking at the playoffs," Bevino said. "The kids have settled in to our program, and hopefully we're building something here. I'm very happy where we are."

Schumitz may simultaneously have been the breakout star and the most underrated player in the SCC last season, both throwing (1,458) and running (1,161) for more than 1,000 yards from his quarterback position. The good news for Foran is that Schumitz returns for his senior season, but the bad news is that he won't sneak up on anyone this time around.

"He's a heck of an athlete," Bevino said. "He's been throwing the ball very well in practice, but we're hesitant to run him too much in scrimmages because obviously we don't want anything to happen to him."

Bevino trusts Schumitz enough in Foran's spread offense to basically put the game in his hands. At the snap, it's up to Schumitz to make the correct read to either keep the ball or hand it off to a teammate, something that might be tough for some old-school coaches.

"The thing I like about Tucker most is that he's a real student of the game," Bevino said. "He's a really smart kid, he always knows where everyone is on the other team, he has a good feel for what they are trying to do. I trust him enough to pull the ball any time he wants to, it's called a 'choice play'. He doesn't make a wrong choice very often."

Foran has a few holes to fill left by graduation on its lines, but Schumitz - who also uses his reading of the game as a defensive player for the Lions - will look to junior Andrew Sileo (406 yards rushing), and senior Stanley Olsson (26 receptions) to catch some of his passes.

The schedule is much more daunting this year for Bevino and the Lions, opening with a brutal three game stretch of Branford, Xavier, and Hillhouse, but it's probably safe to say that the days of worrying about winless seasons are behind them.

"We'll play the hand we're dealt with the schedule," Bevino said. "But our kids are game. We'll come out and play hard every game, and I'm confident we'll be in most of the games we play this season. I think it will be a fun season."

What a difference four years can make.

31 AND COUNTING: You wouldn't have thought things could get too much worse at East Haven, but with a losing streak of 31 games entering the 2010 season comes word that numbers are so low that the Yellowjackets may have trouble fielding a varsity team.

Athletic Director Mike Marone was quick to try to quell those rumors, but admitted things have been tough this preseason for second-year coach Greg Volpe (who at one point this off-season was told he was fired only to find out later that it wasn't true), and that as few as 17 healthy varsity players were available at a couple of practices last week.

One thing going for East Haven is that the students did not return until Tuesday, so they were hoping to pick up a few kids who might not otherwise be interested in playing, as well as some players that are currently injured. For those that read this column regularly, you'll remember that exactly one year ago in this point, East Haven and their new coach Volpe were featured, complete with this quote:

"I didn't know how deep it went here (at East Haven)," Volpe said. "It's just a culture more than anything. It's a big challenge, but we're going to try to meet it."

Unfortunately, that still sums it up.

And despite what you feel about East Haven, or if you like your team to have an easy win, it really is quite sad the situation the program is in, and we hope things turn around. (It was also a sad summer for the EHHS program as one fo their biggest recent stars, James Glee, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Hartford at the age of 29.)

I'm sure we'll be on this story for most of the 2010 season. One possible bright spot, the Easties were able to get rid of Trinity Catholic as their out-of-conference game and added Platt Tech. East Haven will play the first game in the SCC next Wednesday night against Guilford.

EXTRA POINTS: The Division II race may be too close to call, which may not necessarily benefit the teams that are pushing toward the playoffs. It's important to remember that although the playoff teams in each class have gone from 4 to 8, the number of classes have dropped from 6 to 4. So you math majors can tell us that the number of playoff teams, while increased, has only gone from 24 to 32. It's still hard to see a team with three losses qualifying for the postseason on a regular basis ... You'll see we have Branford tops in the Power Rankings, and that's largely due to the arm of Kyle Nolan, who took over for an injured Andrew Luzzi at quarterback and did very well, throwing for 706 yards and leading the Hornets to four straight wins to close the campaign ... North Haven, who was 7-3 behind sophomore quarterback Joe Schwab, also can't be counted out of the race, and if you want a sleeper, it might be Lyman Hall. The Trojans were much better than their 4-6 record of last season would indicate, and return Joe Desandre (1191 yards rushing as a sophomore in '09) and quarterback John Desandre. And we haven't even gotten to Hillhouse or Foran yet ... You've probably heard about Connecticut's new concussion rule, which - although most reasonable coaches went by anyway - is a good step, but among the other new rules in effect this season: no more than four captains out for the coin toss. How's that for random? Check us out on Twitter, www.twitter.com/currenscc. If you have any story ideas or scores you want to get across, let me know.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

GAME OF THE WEEK

Hillhouse at North Haven, Sept. 16, 7 p.m. - Tough to get a read on Hillhouse this season, but we'll certainly know more about the Academics after this opener. Last season, Hillhouse appeared to beat North Haven, but a time out was called before an apparent missed field goal. The second time around, the Indians made the field goal for a 20-18 victory. The Acs finished 5-5, but had a loss to Ansonia and two Division I losses (Shelton, Wilbur Cross) mixed in. Both of these teams have aspirations for the postseason under the new system, but things will get much tougher for the loser.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS

9

Still the number of teams left in the SCC for Division II football, which while still a perfect square, is still not dividable by 2. Anyone from North Branford to Masuk to Morgan to Hyde has been rumored to be the 20th team in the SCC for football. An unlikely candidate to step up late: Platt Tech, which has already filled the schedule hole of three of the Division II teams, and would like to get its athletic program to a place where it can compete in the lower half of the SCC rather than drive all over the state for games.

D-II POWER RANKINGS

1) Branford (Opener: at Foran) – Big numbers for program, and Tracy now with a year under his belt in charge.

2) North Haven (vs. Hillhouse) – Slowly but surely making progress as one of the top teams in Division II ranks.

3) Lyman Hall (vs. Platt Tech) – Been a while since Trojans have moved this high, but should cruise in first week at least.

4) Hillhouse (at North Haven) – Been a while since Acs have been this low, but win over Indians would be good start.

5) Foran (vs. Branford) – Early schedule will be tough, but if nothing else, Lions should been very fun to watch.

6) Sheehan (vs. Jonathan Law) – Life without Biestak, who also led Sheehan in rushing, begins for Titans this week.

7) Jonathan Law (at Sheehan) – Reports out of Milford say Lawmen are huge, but going to have to find way to score.

Guilford (at East Haven) – Well, if the Indians don't win their opener, at least we'll have a good story, won't we?

9) East Haven (vs. Guilford) – Yellowjackets might have circled Platt Tech on their schedules already.

The high school football teams are gearing up for the run to Rentschler Field the new home for the CIAC football championship games.  Along with the comforts of the new site teams will be competing within a new playoff format. There will be four Division Champions by year-end. The road to the championship will feature quarterfinal round games, semifinal games and the ultimate goal the championship games.  A total of thirty-two teams will qualify for the tournament.

One team will try to turn things around with a new head coach. Amity long-time assistant Bert Mozealous is taking over for Mike DeVito. I had a chance to sit down with Bert for a bit and chat. Please enjoy the interview.  We will be adding more interviews as the year moves on.   

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Enjoy the audio replay from the 2007 CIAC Class SS Football Championship game of Seymour vs. Tolland. Visit our store to purchase an audio download of this game for your computer or audio devices.

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Enjoy the audio replay from the 2007 CIAC Class MM Football Championship game of Hand vs. New Canaan. Visit our store to purchase an audio download of this game for your computer or audio devices.

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Enjoy the audio replay from the 2007 CIAC Class M Football Championship game of Berlin vs. Ledyard. Visit our store to purchase an audio download of this game for your computer or audio devices.

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Enjoy the audio replay from the 2007 CIAC Class LL Football Championship game of Greenwich vs. Shelton. Visit our store to purchase an audio download of this game for your computer or audio devices.

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The SCC is expanding field hockey to include a tournament this coming fall and the SCC has decided to expand the tournament fields for the boy's and girl's soccer tournaments in 2010.  The audio interview touches upon the topics listed and goes in a different direction when we talk about the state of high school sports.

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Enjoy the rebroadcast of the high school football game between Xavier vs. Notre Dame WH played Friday night September 17, 2010. This is a live feed which will loop from beginning to end. We will have the On-demand replay available shortly.

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The 14th Annual Hall of Fame Football Classic was a complete success. Not only was the game exciting New Haven County winning 16-13, but there was a nice crowd of over 3,000 on hand to watch the charity All-Star game.  Here you can watch the replay of the game.  Please visit our store where you can purchase  a DVD or  download a MP4 Movie file like your watching now to your computer.

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Replay  streaming  now - New Haven County vs. Fairfield County - Please visit our store to purchase a DVD of the game.

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