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Last week, I talked about how the SCC may not have a dominant team this season, and it may be the biggest reason why this has the potential to be the greatest SCC season ever because of it. Week 3 did absolutely nothing to dispel that notion, as – with the weather spreading the games out over the course of four days – if the SCC had its own TV network, there would have been no trouble with ratings.

I’ll try to recap as quickly as I can, I had a couple of other stories I wanted to get to, but they’ll just have to wait:

The week started with a couple of overtime thrillers (the first two extra sessions in an SCC conference game), as the forecast was calling for a monsoon for Friday night that it turned out never came.

Shelton trailed 20-7 at halftime, but was led back by quarterback Matt Brighindi, who completed 13-of-22 passes for 209 yards, including a touchdown with 30 seconds left to tie the game. In overtime, early-season runaway SCC Player of the Year Billy Ragone was involved in his fifth touchdown of the contest, but a missed extra point opened the door for the Gaels. Joel Youd took two runs to tie the game, and Jamal Mitchell added his fifth extra point of the afternoon, and Shelton had survived 35-34.

For Ragone and the Rams, though, it was more frustration and a second loss that dims its postseason hopes once again. “We have to find ways to make plays on the defensive end in the second half,” Cheshire coach Mark Ecke said. “We’re just not getting it done on the defensive side of the ball.”

Meanwhile, in East Haven, the Yellowjackets nearly (and really, should have) broken the longest losing streak in the SCC. After Rob Greenspun returned an interception midway through the fourth quarter, East Haven led 23-7, but an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for the celebration led to a long extra point being missed.

The Trojans’ Zach Falconer returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, and Lyman Hall scored again with time running out, picking up the 2-point conversion both times to send the game to overtime. Again, it came down to the kicking in overtime (as it always does). Both teams scored, but somewhat inexplicably, especially with the record they have, the Easties chose to kick and go for the tie and a second overtime. The kick sailed wide, and Lyman Hall had a 30-29 overtime win.

That was just Thursday. On a normal week, the Hand-Fairfield Prep contest would have the story of the week. Fairfield Prep quarterback Brendan Nizolek and his family are good friends with Hand coach Steve Filippone, as brother Ryan (now an outstanding lacrosse player at Virginia) was a key cog in the last set of Hand state titles.

Brendan played freshman football in Madison before transferring to Prep, and the teams did not play each other last season. Add the fact that Hand’s star quarterback Nick Merullo also has ties to Prep (his father played there), MSG was broadcasting the game (although if you’re like me, you’re still searching for MSG Plus), and Hand was 0-2 coming into the game, and you had all kinds of storylines.

And it almost had a storybook ending for the Nizoleks. With his brother, father, and grandfather (who drove all the way up from Hilton Head, S.C. to get to the game), Prep got the ball trailing 27-21 with 1:43 left at their own 35-yard line. Alas, even though it was on TV, it wasn’t Hollywood. With Merullo filling in on defense, Lee Simkins’ sack of Nizolek on the Hand 29-yard line ended Prep’s hope of its second straight late-second win, and gave the Tigers their first win of the campaign. It was smiles and hugs all around after the game, though, as the friendships are much stronger than any football game.

“I told Nizolek before the game that I want them to be 9-1 and the loss be to us, so I still feel that way,” Filippone said. “(Brendan’s) one of us. I know he’s wearing red now, but he’s still one of us, and I wish him the best of luck. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” Also on Friday, North Haven put together a solid performance at Bowen Field in the rain, but came up short, 18-10, to Hillhouse. This game probably deserves more ink, but unfortunately for the Indians, wrong week.

Because on Saturday night, Hamden and West Haven played was will surely be the SCC Game of the Year. In front of a relatively sparse crowd at Ken Strong Stadium, the host Westies pretty much manhandled favored Hamden for most of the evening, rushing for nearly 300 yards.

The Blue Devils actually trailed 6-2 at halftime, but scored on their first two possessions of the second half and held the Dragons to minus-3 yards of offense in the third quarter, and held a 15-6 lead with one quarter to play. Then all heck broke loose, to be kind.

A bad snap on a punt put Hamden on the West Haven 9, and Jason Lassiter found Josh Smart for a touchdown to make it 15-13. Three plays later, the Westies fumbled, and this time Smart ran it in from 6 yards out, and Hamden improbably had the lead back, 19-15, with 6:18 left.

But, undeterred, West Haven took the momentum back, running over the smaller Dragons, and taking just seven plays to march down the field, finished off by an 8-yard touchdown run from Damien McIntosh to grab a 21-19 lead with 4:06 to go. After Hamden went four-and-out (failing on a fourth-down conversion), O’Brien Johnson took the next play 43 yards for what looked to be a game-clinching TD with 3:06 left, putting the Westies up 28-19.

Hamden slowly – seemingly too slowly – came down the field, and eventually scored, Lassiter finding Smart for his fourth touchdown of the game to cut the lead to 28-26 with 1:04 left.

Hamden’s onside kick failed, they got an unsportsmanlike penalty to boot – their fifth of the game – and I yelled to Ned Griffen of the New London Day (formerly of the Register), “I’m out of here, unless they pull a Pisarcik, then I’ll be back.” I got to the gate, when unfortunately for West Haven, the Pisarcik did happen (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, Wikipedia it), somehow West Haven butchered a snap exchange, Hamden’s Jo-Van Ladson fell on it, and Hamden had life with 55 seconds to go.

They also had a secret weapon in reserve. One of the first things Hamden coach Scott Benoit was told about his new team (remember, they were coming off back-to-back one-win seasons) was that he had a good kicker at least. Junior Kemuel Lawrence stood 6-foot-2 and had already kicked the ball into the end zone twice on kickoffs in the evening. But he hadn’t hit a long field goal in a game as of yet, and Hamden had some work to do to give him a chance anyway. But when Lassiter hit Tevin Moye for a 12-yard connection (Hamden which had 138 total yards in the game’s first 45 minutes, had 107 in the final three), the ball stood at the West Haven 25-yard line with 8 seconds left.

It was time to let the secret weapon loose. As Lawrence put his tee down on the 32-yard line, West Haven still stood in their base defense, looking a bit bemused. As it became obvious this was indeed a field goal attempt, West Haven tried to run to the line of scrimmage, but it was too late to get close to stop it.

As the ball hit Lawrence’s foot, the crowd gasped, and there was no doubt that it had the distance. As it turned out, it was right down the middle and probably would have been good from 50 yards.

The silence was broken by jubilation on the Hamden sideline, it was their first win over West Haven in a decade and they are 3-0.

“I was playing around in practice one day my freshman year, and I found out I can kick a ball pretty far,” Lawrence said. “Once the coaches saw it, I was a kicker.” By the end, Benoit was soaked, and it wasn’t raining.

“I can’t take too many more of these games,” he said. “I’m not going to make it through the season.” I have only one question as we continue in what looks like the greatest season in SCC history.

Is it Friday night yet?

EXTRA POINTS: A kicker is always an important commodity, but not always a readily available one for high school teams in Connecticut, especially with the new overtime rules. Hand turned to a German-exchange student, Richard Krupp, who had only been in the school for a few weeks and had never actually put on an American football uniform before Friday night against Fairfield Prep. “Das Boot” as he was called by his teammates, Krupp connected on his first three extra points, before having his fourth one blocked. He did look a little confused when Prep ran a kickoff back for a touchdown …

Speaking of special teams, Xavier blocked three punts in its 21-14 win over Notre Dame. Alex Pace hit Will Tye for the winning touchdown with 2:17 remaining. Notre Dame will play West Haven Friday with both teams looking for their first win …

Obviously, most of the games scheduled for Friday night should have been played Friday night, but the weather forecast looked ugly when the decisions had to be made. However, with artificial turf, the games still should have been played. “We were more concerned about the travel and the people trying to get to and from the games,” Notre Dame athletic director Tom Marcucci said. “They were talking winds and flooding, and that was the forecast. They were wrong.” Two teams that got jilted because of the weather were the West Haven and Notre Dame soccer teams. Their biggest game of the year was originally scheduled for Saturday at 7 p.m., but when the Hamden-West Haven game was moved, they were bounced to 2 p.m. West Haven athletic director Jon Capone called it a financial decision, with the football gate paying for many other things in the athletic department. Such is life, I guess. It wasn’t a great day for the West Haven soccer team either. The Blue Devils lost a two-goal lead in the final 15 minutes of regulation and lost in overtime, 4-3. Looks like the SCC soccer is exciting this year, too.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Mike Brighindi, Shelton – Brighindi went from inexperienced to experienced in one afternoon, completing 13-of-22 passes for 209 yards and leading the Gaels back from a 13-point halftime deficit to stop Cheshire 35-34 in overtime. Shelton is 3-0 and has scored 103 points in the process.

GAME OF THE WEEK

Hillhouse at Branford, Friday, 7 p.m. – If there is a Division II team that can slow down the Academics, it might be the Hornets, who should be buoyed by North Haven’s effort against Hillhouse last week. However, that game was in the rain, and the long-range forecast looks pretty good for Friday night. How well the Acs defend the pass should decide how close this game is.

INSIDE THE NUMBERS 10

Number of years between victories over West Haven for Hamden before last Saturday’s 29-28 thriller. It was a pretty amazing streak for the Blue Devils, but it may signal a little bit of the changing of the guard in the SCC.

POWER RANKINGS

1) Hillhouse (3-0, Last Week 1) – If you had that speed advantage, would you play on a muddy field?

2) Shelton (3-0, LW 2) – Rather stunning the amount of points that the Gaels are putting up.

3) Hamden (3-0, LW 4) – Really had little right beating West Haven, but you need a couple of those.

4) Wilbur Cross (3-0, LW 9) – Hey, how did they get up here? Could keep moving with a Cheshire win.

5) Fairfield Prep (1-1: LW 3) – Looks like it’s going to be very tough sledding in D-I for anyone.

6) Cheshire (1-2; LW 5) – It looks like, once again, their record won’t indicate how good they are.

7) West Haven (0-2, LW 7) – Would like to move them lower, but they did dominate Hamden.

8) Hand (1-2; LW 10) – Got off the deck with a big win, and could get plenty of playoff points Friday.

9) Xavier (2-1, LW 12) – Early season favorite for toughest team to project award of 2008.

10) Amity (1-2, LW 6) – Things appear to be crumbling a little but for Spartans with a long way left.

11) Notre Dame (0-2, LW 8) – Lost both of their games in the final minutes, and have West Haven this week.

12) Branford (2-1, LW 11) – Would be a shocker against Hillhouse, but stranger things have happened.

13) Sheehan (3-0, LW 15) – Right now, the Titans would be the top seed in the Class M playoffs.

14) North Haven (1-2, LW 14) – Indians were in the game until the end, could bode well for the future.

15) Jonathan Law (2-1, LW 13) – Loss to Sheehan broke a 9-game winning streak, one of state’s longest.

16) Guilford (1-2, LW 18) – We told you they were still a pretty good Division II team, and they showed it.

17) Foran (2-1, LW 16) – Still some work to do for Bevino and the Lions going forward.

18) Lyman Hall (2-1, LW 17) – Still trying to figure out how they won their game last week.

19) East Haven (0-3, LW 20) – Still trying to figure out how they lost their game last week.

20) Derby (1-2, LW 19) – When they got to the bottom last year, the Red Raiders responded.