SPB's High School Football

Tyler Matakevich at St. Joseph's football practice in Trumbull, Conn. on Wednesday Sept. 30, 2009.

Updated: Sunday. From the Connecticut Post – Matakevich talks about the injury.

Updated: Sunday, 4:30 p.m. (Original posting below)

The preliminary prognosis on Tyler Matakevich’s right foot is a fractured fifth metatarsal, or the long bone on the outside of the foot, coach Joe Della Vecchia said Sunday.

“He’s on crutches and he’s got a Tuesday appointment with the doctor, so we’ll see what he says,” said Della Vecchia, who guessed the team will be without their All-State back for at least two weeks, if not more.

St. Joseph plays Crosby and Wilton to start the year.

“I’m hoping that’s all it is,” Della Vecchia said. “We just won’t know until Tuesday. He’s pretty down about it. He feels like he let the team down. But I said, ‘Hey, it happens. We had a good day without you. We’ll be OK.’

“We’ll miss him. I know he’s great on offense, but we’re really going to miss him on defense because of all the big plays he makes.”

St. Joseph’s defense also lost senior linebacker Will Dwinells for four to six weeks with a fractured tibia (lower leg).

ORIGINAL POST

St. Joseph’s all-state linebacker and tailback Tyler Matakevich is in danger of missing a significant amount of the 2010 season after injuring his foot during a scrimmage at Shelton Saturday.

Matakevich had only played about five plays when he “picked off a pass and said his foot hurt,” St. Joseph coach Joe Della Vecchia said via text message this morning.

Matakevich was immediately sent for X-rays and the preliminary results were “not good,” Della Vecchia said.

“We’ll know more Tuesday,” said Della Vecchia, adding that the team also lost another starter during the scrimmage.

And so St. Joseph will now hold its collective breath and pray that its top player isn’t gone for long.

Matakevich ran for 1,400 yards and 20 touchdowns, caught 39 passes for 500 yards and 6 more touchdowns, and made 97 tackles and had three interceptions and was the MVP of St. Joseph’s 14-3 Class SS championship victory over Montville.

His presence on this year’s St. Joseph squad made the Hogs an instant contender in the FCIAC and Class S.

Typically you get a lot of offensive fireworks at the annual Masuk at Shelton scrimmage.

This year? Not so much. Both offenses sputtered like one of those silly Black Cat fireworks set on a rainy Fourth of July.

This year, the pyrotechnics came from defense.

Defense.

And more defense.

And Masuk was the star of this display.

(more…)

About two years ago, I apparently wrote a column on how Clear Channel Radio’s move of ‘The Coach’ George DeMaio’s Friday Night Football Extravaganza show from its home station WELI to sister station WAVZ was going to be the death knell for the long-running local program.

I say “apparently” because I don’t remember writing the column. But it was read to me verbatim by The Coach on the phone. “It says right here: With this move from WELI to WAVZ, the high school football show will ultimately fade away.”

There was a giddy tone to George’s voice this time around. He was calling to tell me that, ultimately, I was wrong.

(more…)

St. Joseph seems to be the trendy FCIAC pick this season, which is completely understandable for a couple reasons:

A) The Hogs return Tyler Matakevich and Joe Della Vecchia and basically everybody else save for Jason Mawicke (now at Staples) and some linemen. B) Picking the usual suspects kinda gets boring.

Anyway, St. Joe looked pretty dominant in this scrimmage vs. Pomperaug on Wednesday afternoon in Southbury. Matakevich was running wild, Della Vecchia was throwing darts and the defense pretty much controlled the line of scrimmage all afternoon.

It’s an impressive, impressive show by Joe D’s kids as you’ll see in a moment.

(more…)

Bassick teacher Kathy Silver (bottom left) and her students at the NYIFF this summer. (via Facebook)

A mighty Congratulations! to Kathy Silver and the kids at Bassick High School for an epic win today: Best Sports Documentary from the New York Independent Film Festival.

Silver, a media teacher at Bassick, and her students put together a fabulous film documenting the daily trials of the Bassick student-athletes on the West End of Bridgeport. They went down to New York for a screening during the summer

Here’s the winner’s list. Again congrats to Kathy and the gang.

Amazing film. Huge victory. When’s the next viewing party?

Normally, I check Ansonia out during its annual clash with West Haven at Ken Strong Stadium. This year we decided to grab Ansonia about a week earlier.

Since we’re dragging our feet on the 5 NVL question post (soon, I promise), I needed some quick information on Ansonia. Plus, I was absolutely dying to see what Notre Dame-West Haven is going to be all about.

And, as I quickly found out Tuesday afternoon, the Green Knights are going to be about a great, many things.

(more…)

Checked out the Staples-Seymour-Shelton scrimmage today at Shelton High School. We’ll have some quick highlights perhaps Monday.

But the Staples coaches tell me two of their captains, ends Pat Murray and Chris Coyne have committed to play at Yale University.

(more…)

Here’s the latest high school football scrimmage schedule from CIAC. Lots of extra dates added from our previous post last week.

Again, this  isn’t a comprehensive list and it is subject to change. But, for what it’s worth here you go:

(more…)