SPB's High School Football

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Get out your scissors and your yellow highlighters. It’s POLL DAY! From The Day of New London and (ahem) that… er… um… other, uh paper.

No big surprises in either one… Greenwich goes from 4 to 3, New Canaan from 6 to 5, Shelton from unranked to ranked.

In fact, if it wasn’t so fun to see people get all riled up over this stuff, I’d abolish all talk of polls forever because, frankly, polls are dumb.

But it does make for entertaining banter, doesn’t it? (especially on the pages of this fair WebLog). So here we go…

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Like most people around the state, I spent my first official football game of the evening getting soaked while on the Newtown sidelines at Finn Stadium.

Actually, I was so excited to get the season kicked off, I left the house without bringing an umbrella and had to drive all the way back to my home to get it and, by the time I reached
Shelton, Matt Stevko returned the kickoff 87 yards for a touchdown.

I missed getting that play on video, of course. I also missed Shelton scoring on a double pass from Paul Piccirillo to Nick Georgalas … just like I missed it in the Ansonia scrimmage a mere week before.

But I got everything else, including Darek Leszczynski‘s wild–yet highly controversial–touchdown late in the third quarter. Here’s a look at the wild second half from my perspective.

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While banging my head on the keyboard Thursday night, trying to get out our 2008 preview under duress (don’t ask), I did get a chance to check out WTNH’s webcast of the Hand-New London game.

A couple of things…

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Attention! Attention!

Batten down the hatches! Hide the women and children! Today is first day of the 2008 High School football season. It’s finally here! It’s finally here. It’s been far, far too long. We finally kickoff tonight.

Platt Tech at Foran, Stratford at Law, that highly anticipated thriller between Ansonia and Sacred Heart in Waterbury. Elsewhere, an anticipated matchup between New London and Hand at the Surf Club. Get out and go. Check it out. Week 1 starts TONIGHT.

UpdateEXTRA! EXTRA! Get your 2008 Connecticut High School Record Book Here! While your downloading the .pdf, send my ol’ pal Gerry DeSimas Jr. an email. He and otherworldly football folks like Bob Barton slave over this thing every year.

Despite a few games from our region kicking off tonight (what? Too good for Friday nights Law and Stratford?), we have elected to run our complete preview section tomorrow for sanity sake (i.e. mine).

For now, there’s plenty to peruse from other papers in Connecticut. Here, we’ll give you the ones who don’t cover our schools (because, really, who’s better than us?

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For those who haven’t noticed (from what I gather, that’s many of you), the Connecticut Post has been counting down to the high school football season. Eight days, eight stories and the Elite 8 countdown.

Today’s story was on Trumbull senior Richie Edwards. Today’s Elite 8 team: No. 5 Greenwich.

If you haven’t been able to find the stories online, here are the links:

Day 1: Osiecki has become a big hit
Day 2: Foran expects big things from White
Day 3: Ansonia’s Roberts to make most of 2nd chance
Day 4: Finally healthy, Edwards eager to play
Day 5: Baker returns, looks to lead Masuk to glory
Day 6: TBA
Day 7: TBA
Day 8: TBA

And here are the Elite 8 Countdowns:
No. 8 — Fairfield Prep
No. 7 — Shelton
No. 6 — Seymour
No. 5 — Greenwich
No. 4 — TBA
No. 3 — TBA
No. 2 — TBA
No. 1 — TBA

And, from the Stamford Advocate: Stamford schools feature touted running backs

SPB

First of all, a hardy thank you to the coaches to took time to fill our our annual high school football prospectus. Your attention to this detail helps a ton and endears your program to me and the rest of the Connecticut Post staff.

Now, to the delinquents:

Despite sending them out at the beginning of August through regular and electronic mail, and as much as we hope and pray, we still have a considerable amount missing from our 50 coverage area schools

Here’s the list of teams who have not sent out prospectuses as of Sunday night (the deadline was Friday so I had time to write the capsules for Friday’s preview).

FCIAC (8): Bassick, Darien, Harding, Greenwich, Norwalk, McMahon, New Canaan, Stamford, Wilton. (This upsets me that nearly half of the FCIAC is unaccounted for).

SWC (3): Immaculate, New Milford, Stratford, Weston.

SCC (1): West Haven.

NVL: Naugatuck.

CTC: none.

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Here’s the video montage from Friday night’s Shelton-Ansonia scrimmage. As you’ll see, a nice Shelton touchdown drive and a 7-0 first quarter lead was promptly buried by Ansonia and back Tristan Roberts, who we profiled in today’s Connecticut Post. Ansonia’s Roberts to make most of second chance

I managed to capture almost every big play… with the exception of Shelton’s Joel Youd throwing a halfback option touchdown pass to Nick Georgalas (Nice play. Sorry guys).

SPB

Tim Parry, that free wheelin’ football mad dude from the increasingly misnomered FCIAC football blog (he’s doing all of Fairfield County these days, including the county’s only SCC schools Shelton and Fairfield Prep, Shelton, the only SCC team in the county, and preps like King and Brunswick) was on the prowl Friday night.

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