News, analysis, commentary and features on southwestern Connecticut high school athletics and beyond with Connecticut Post online producer and writer Sean Patrick Bowley and correspondent Henry Chisholm
I passed on the first few football scrimmages held Friday and Saturday because I was working hard with my new coworkers on the new websites Friday and because of all the bad weather and Pilot Pen finals on Saturday.
But I finally got myself together on this gorgeous Sunday to watch Staples and Seymour visit Shelton for a tri-scrimmage that–for a football-starved reporter–was four hours of bliss.
That is, until I felt sizzling skin on the back of my neck… yeah, forgot the sunblock. I’m in pain.
Won’t get too, too detailed on the report. Besides, reader Dave K beat me to the punch on another entry. Here’s what he saw:
Staples,Seymour @ Shelton 1 Staples – excellent skilled players QB and RBs Excellent line play out played Shelton 2 Shelton – deep in skilled positions; OL and DL need to improve; new offense (spread and wildcat) needs time to develop. played an entire scrimmage with out one toss pitch. 3 Seymour- small line, not impressed with QB, out played by both Shelton and Staples
Update: Here’s another take, this time from Johnny Ribbs on a seperate post:
Staples,Seymour @ Shelton (my take) 1 Staples – QB’s didnt impress me at all. Big squad. Solid overall. 2 Shelton – deep in skilled positions; QB looked great to me. 3 Seymour- no argument they were outplayed by both squads. QB looked ok in the pass skeleton, Seymour got smacked around pretty good in the 7 on 7.
That’s pretty much what I noticed, too. (Thanks, guys). Indeed, there was one stretch during the rushing portion of the scrimmage when Staples’ offensive line consistently opened big gaps or flattened the ends on sweeps off tackle, to bust their tailbacks loose for potentially big runs. Shelton passes the eyeball test for size. But, surprisingly enough, the run defense’s ineffectiveness stood out.
Passing defense? The Gaels were pretty good. They have athletes at the skill positions. And, on offense, 6-4 senior quarterback Mike Brighindi Ray Pendagast and his receivers picked Staples’ secondary apart, prompting Wreckers assistant Mac DeVito to quip to boss Marce Petroccio during one play, “Do you want to fire me now or after the scrimmage?”
Shelton’s run game was particularly good. Its offensive line, which returns three starters, broke open some holes for senior tailback Paul Piccirillo and junior Ryan DeAngelis. Piccirillo, in fact, scored often, including back-to-back TDs late in the scrimmage. Like Dave said, they’re trying a some new things on offense.
Staples’ QB Brandon Pacilio threw decent long passes to his receivers. They made a few nice catches. The Wreckers’ option offense under his direction and the aforementioned O-line looks like it could be pretty good.
Seymour has some issues. The ‘Cats are a mix of vets and kids who never played a lick of football in their life. Taylor Searles, the tailback, stood out at times. QB Conor Shugrue has to break in a brand-new receiving corps. The defense struggled against both Staples and Shelton. Big and athletic tackle Jacob Drozd may make a move from D-line to linebacker. So far, it’s a work in progress.
New coach Tom Lennon who is taking over for 28-year coach Paul Sponheimer says they have some work to do. That Seymour eschewed spring practices for extra days this August, Lennon says, has made a world of difference.
But, don’t forget, this is far early in the preseason. None of this means squat come Sept. 16.
Anyway, video to come as soon as I get it transcribed and edited. First football video of the season with the new camera. We’ll see how this goes.
Until then, your comments are welcome.
(Thanks to Dave K, again, for correcting me on Pendagast. Like I said to a few people at the scrimmage, I always got him and Brighindi mixed up.)
Like everyone else in the biz, we’re high on Twitter as a service for delivering the news to you. I won’t get into a long discussion about the benefits of the latest online fashion for the dying newspaper industry in its attempts to stay relevant in the rapidly advancing world of social media. Let’s just say this: We intend to use Twitter as an effective, not to mention practical way for delivering real-time news reports to the masses.
What does this mean for high school football? It’s simple:
You have a Twitter account, you have a mobile phone (with internet or text messaging), and you’re going to a high school football game.
So while you’re there, send out a tweet about what’s going on at your game: A score, a scoring update or whatever else you feel is appropriate. Most important, you must add a hashtag (for the uninitiated, a mark designated to file your tweet under a common topic on Twitter) at the end of your message.
For Connecticut high school football, when you tweet at a game, leave room for the hashtag #cthsfootball in your 140 character allotment.
That will group your updates with all of the other tweets coming from fans and Connecticut Post reporters across Southwestern Connecticut (and, if we’re fortunate, from around the state) and allow anybody to see every update by searching #cthsfootball.
If we get enough participation, searching #cthsfootball will allow anybody with a computer or a mobile phone to see what’s going on as its happening. There will be no need to scramble for updates or scores from phone calls or text messages to people that may or may not be at the games. It will be right at your fingertips whenever you want.
So if you have a twitter account, don’t forget to give us your updates this high school football season.
If you don’t have a twitter account, get one so you can get all the football information you’ll ever want on a Friday night. You can sign up for a free account at twitter.com. Don’t forget to follow the Connecticut Post high school section at connHSsports, sports reporter Henry Chisholm at misterHRCee or me at SPBowley and any of our other reporters whose accounts will be made available soon.
In fact, get started this preseason. We’re already out there.
Trumbull High School football players go through drills Tuesday morning at the school. Phil Noel/Staff photographer
On Saturday (barring any rainstorms from Tropical Storm Danny), every team in the state be strapped on their pads for the first round of full-on contact practices. Some will be holding joint practices, like Notre Dame-Fairfield and Law. Some will be holding scheduled scrimmages.
Here are a few of the local scrimmages listed on the CIAC’s website for the next week beginning Saturday. Feel free to add your own events, if they’re not here.
SATURDAY
East Haven at Derby/O’Brien Tech (10 a.m.)
New Fairfield at Ridgefield (noon)
SUNDAY
Staples, Seymour at Shelton (noon)
MONDAY
Bethel at Danbury, 3:30
Stratford at Trumbull, 3:45
TUESDAY
Immaculate at Westhill, 3
Law at Hamden 3:30
Wilbur Cross at Guilford, 3:30
Ansonia at Notre Dame-WH, 3:30
WEDNESDAY (this is the first big scrimmage day on the schedule)
Amity at Naugatuck, 3:30 (or is it Naugtuck at Amity? Conflicted schedule listed on CIAC).
Harding at Stamford, 3:30
Pomperaug at St. Joseph, 4
Weston at Wilton, 4
Fairfield Prep at Fairfield Warde, 4
Bunnell at Staples, 4
Barlow, Brookfield at Ridgefield, 5 p.m.
(and, of course), Masuk at Shelton, 6 p.m.
This Masuk-Shelton scrimmage is always a blast. It feature two of Greater Bridgeport’s two best programs and some of the region’s best players–not to mention some funny stuff, like Justin Conte and his did-he-or-didn’t-he? touchdown catch that I failed to catch on film last year. It’s also where coach John Murphy introduced me to what could have been his quarterback of the future, Wheldon Vaughn — a 6-3 sophomore.
Vaughn, however, moved to Virginia in the offseason and, of course, Masuk now has sophomore prodigy Casey Cochran joining the roster. We’ll get our first good look at the defending Class L champions in this scrimmage. Shelton is also supposed to be pretty decent behind Sr. RB Paul Piccirillo.
For tomorrow’s Connecticut PostHenry Chisholm will have a report on Ansonia, which is attempting to overcome the loss of 3/4ths of its starting lineup and the pain of last year’s Class S championship loss. We’ll have the link up here as soon as we get it tonight. Looks like I misspoke. Henry’s out at Ansonia gathering info, but no stories yet.
Wright Tech/Stamford Academy, under the direction of Trevor Jones, was the founding member of the Constitution State Conference, a league that managed to level the playing field for teams like Bullard-Havens, and made football a possibility for schools like Platt Tech, Abbott Tech and Wilcox Tech. The CSC remains eight schools strong, with the addition of Abbott Tech of Danbury.
New Bassick coach Frank Marcucio is fired up, to say the least. His kids should be stoked, too.
Marcucio managed to secure 50 tickets to a national movie event, a live football movie starring former Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, called Tony Dungy’s Red Zone ‘09.
It’s an instructional and motivational show for high school football players sponsored by MaxPreps.com being shown at 450 theaters nationwide. Guests include USC coach Pete Carroll, former NFL standout and motivational speaker Joe Ehrmann, NFL Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin, current NFL players Peyton Manning, Bob Sanders, Joseph Addai, Adam Vinatieri and Dallas Clark. They’ll be broadcasting live from Plano, Texas.
Marcucio is taking his entire team to the event tonight. He had about 20 or so tickets left over, so he offered the remaining tickets to new Harding coach James Morris. Both Bassick and Harding football teams will be going together to the viewing at Regal Cinemas in Branford.
August 24, 2009 at 10:22 pm by Sean Patrick Bowley
Notre Dame of Fairfield, football players run first day drills at the Fairfield High School. Phil Noel/Staff photographer
It’s here. It’s finally here.
After another nine long months (the wait never gets easier, does it?), it’s once again time to grab your helmets, collect all the orange cones you can carry, fill and drag out the water jugs, push the tackling sleds, get into formation and start stretching those calves.
And don’t forget your physicals because you can’t play if you don’t… um, bring your note to the fray.
(thud)
Anyway! It’s football season. It’s finally really football season.
For everybody.
Ninety-six high school football teams started practice today, joining the 52 others that started last week under the new CIAC rules, which allow teams to eschew spring football for an extra four days in the fall.
(By the way, Big surprise: We already have one unconfirmed rumor today that at least one regional school might have already run both spring and the extra days of fall practice. Not sure how much validity’s behind that, but that’s quite a blatant violation if true. Then again, is it much different than running all of these offseason passing leagues, lineman camps and out-of-state trips and such? Like UConn coach Randy Edsall said, Connecticut is far behind the development curve with the CIAC’s draconian practice rules, but you do have to draw the line somewhere. By the way, how does the CIAC actually enforce these rules? The honor system?)
Notre Dame of Fairfield, running back, Brody Brandstatter does pushups during the first day of football practice at the Fairfield high school. Phil Noel/Staff photographer
(ahem) Anyway, Connecticut’s 148 teams have now taken their first anxious steps of the 2009 season. Connecticut is finally on the clock. As of this writing, there are 22 days remaining before the season kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 16 with Norwalk at Greenwich, 6 p.m.
After some chiding by Ned Griffen via email about my neglecting to remember last week’s opening day, I’m happy to say now that The Connecticut Post and friends are on back the case.
I visited four practices today in Fairfield to see three new head coaches in their new digs — Joe Beler at Notre Dame-Fairfield; Duncan Dellavolpe at Fairfield Warde; Bill Pinto at Fairfield Prep. Hard to believe but second-year coach Fairfield Ludlowe’s Matt McCloskey, who I saw last, is the old man of this bunch in terms of head-coaching service to their schools (2 years).
Of course, the others aren’t exactly rookies. Dellavolpe, after all, is an Ansonia guy and one of the architects of New Canaan’s state championship run. Beler has an SWC championship and state playoff appearance under his belt back during his days at Foran in 2001. Pinto has been Prep’s defensive guy for years. So…
The idea was to shoot some video and package it into a conditioning week practice feature. But, really, not much goes on at the first few practices. So I’m keeping the cap on the camera until the end of the week.
Here was what I gleaned from my time outside today:
…All four teams have some major gaps to plug. But doesn’t everybody. …Fairfield Prep has just one returning starter. Both of its captains were almost exclusively JV guys. …Fairfield Warde has about 40 on the preseason roster. …Ludlowe about 45. …Prep and Warde are going to scrimmage for the first time in years, if not ever. …Notre Dame is still low on numbers, but Beler’s optimistic with some of his newcomers. …Tried to think of some of the good teams in the SCC this year: Hamden, Hand, Shelton, Notre Dame-WH, maybe Xavier (had a good freshman team last year). …The Westies have some talent coming up through the ranks, too. I also heard good things about Sheehan and quarterback Brett Biestek a 6-3, 220-pound quarterback who’s getting local Division I looks. …Good teams in the FCIAC? Can’t discount New Canaan despite heavy losses (again). Darien will be pretty decent? Their new QB could be pretty good. …It has been pretty quiet down there in Greenwich. “That usually means they’re ready to explode,” said one. 8-3 was a down year for the Cards. …Prep won’t be on MSG this year. But they will be on the Connecticut Sports Network/WTNH game. With Hamden, possibly? …The Jesuits open with Notre Dame-West Haven. …Beler is taking his boys back to Jonathan Law in Milford, his old stomping ground, for three-a-days on Saturday.
Also, we had new football correspondent Henry Chisholm working overtime on the first full day. He’ll be focusing on the SCC this year and visited Amity and West Haven. … Amity, he said, is moving away from last year’s pass-happy modus-operandi. Gunslinger Bill Choiniere is gone, meaning that the team will be much more balanced. Two players are fighting for the QB job. DB/WR/RB Tom Scanlon is the Spartans’ best returning player. He said he’ll have more on West Haven tomorrow. The Westies have a new turf field installed at Ken Strong Stadium.
That’s it for now… in retrospect, kind of a disjointed post. But, hey, it’s preseason for everybody. I’ll get my game on soon as we try to piece together the 2009 season.
Of the few entries I’ve posted this summer, it is the one I wrote to announce my new position at the Connecticut Post/Hearst Connecticut Newspapers organization that’s been busy with activity.
As of today, there have been 27 comments since I posted the thing back in June.
That’s great Sean! Congrats and well-wishes?
No.
It somehow turned into a debate about the Bunnell football program — topics ranged from a discussion about the best team in Bunnell history (I say 2006) to the merits of this year’s addition.
Kinda silly, I say (the location, not the debate). But I hear ya. You had a hankerin’ for high school football talk, you chose that spot to speak your piece.
It was 2 1/2 months ago, yet the comments are still rolling in.
It’s kind of silly to see such an ongoing discussion on an entirely unrelated post. So I decided to help y’all out and create (drumroll)….
The OFFICIAL BUNNELL BULLDOGS FOOTBALL POSTING PAGE.
Satisfy your fix for Bunnell football here. State your case, speak your mind, rap with us, jaw with us. What to you know? What do you see? What do you think? Who was the greatest player in Bunnell football history? The best coach? The best team? What do you think of this year’s upcoming season?
You’re welcome, guys. Go nuts here for the rest of the season. Knock yourselves out.
Senior co-captain Bo McCarty running a training drill as Ridgefield High gets its football season underway with its first official conditioning practice of the season Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009
[caption id="attachment_509" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Senior co-captain Drew Arcoleo warms up with the Band Stretching exercise as Ridgefield High gets its football season underway with its first official conditioning practice of the season Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2009"][/caption]On Tuesday night, I received an instant message from pal Steve Kirck, the communications and alumni director at Notre Dame-West Haven. “Football practice starts tomorrow!” was the gist. I didn’t get a chance to IM Steve back, but my first thought — embarrassingly enough — was, “Huh? Is that…uh… legal?”
It only dawned on me Wednesday afternoon, when the News-Times’ writer Dan Farrand filed a report from Brookfield. The 2008 Class M champions had started conditioning.
Ah, right, the new CIAC rules.
Goes something like this: This year, the CIAC football committee agreed to give coaches the option of either running traditional spring practice or run an extra five days of preseason practice in the fall.
So, yeah, while I’m sitting here like a sucker thinking all (ahem, legal) practices were going to start Monday like always, we actually had a bunch of area teams hitting the football fields for the first time yesterday. Fifty-two teams in all eschewed spring practice for extra fall practice. The remaining 96 teams will officially get started Monday.
And, according to the CIAC website, here are the area teams who actually kicked off tryouts on Wednesday.
Abbott Tech, Brookfield, Bulkeley, Canton, Capital Prep, Crosby, Derby/O’Brien Tech, E.O. Smith, East Haven, Ellington/Somers, Enfield, Fairfield Prep, Fermi, Fitch, Foran, Glastonbury, Granby Memorial, Griswold, Guilford, Hartford Public, Immaculate, Killingly, Maloney, Middletown, New Fairfield, New London, Nonnewaug, Northwest Catholic, Norwich Free Academy, Notre Dame-West Haven, Oxford, Prince Tech, Putnam, RHAM/Lyman Memorial, Ridgefield, Rockville, SMSA, Seymour, Simsbury. South Windsor, St. Bernard/Norwich Tech, St. Joseph, Stonington, Torrington, Tourtellotte/Ellis Tech, Waterford, Watertown, Wilcox Tech, Wilton, Windsor Locks/Suffield, Woodstock Academy, Wright Tech/Stamford Academy.
So, uh, yeah. Football season is UNDERWAY!
…not that this changes anything. The Connecticut High School Football season STILL starts on Sept. 16, the last state in the union to actually start the season. Guh.
ANYWAY, to get outsiders in the mood, here are the preseason football stories that we’ve run today.
So, uh, yeah… awright… let’s get ready to rumble, huh?
(Update: BY THE WAY, feel free to follow yours truly on Twitter at spbowley and Connecticut High School Sports at connHSsports and discuss the upcoming season with #cthsfootball.
The 74-year old National and Connecticut High School Coaches Association hall-of-famer, who coached for 44 years primarily as the head man at Trumbull until 1998, is joining Ryan Brown’s staff at St. Luke’s of New Canaan as the defensive coordinator.
But hey, if Coach McDougall still has the itch, St. Luke’s will be a nice fit for him. The Fairchester League is out of the spotlight somewhat and it can be pretty laid back at many of the league’s schools.
He should be able to shake off some of the coaching rust there and share from his well of football knowledge. The St. Luke’s kids are lucky to have him.
Like everyone else in the biz, we’re high on 
New Bassick coach Frank Marcucio is fired up, to say the least. His kids should be stoked, too.
You guys are incredible. 
[/caption]On Tuesday night, I received an instant message from pal Steve Kirck, the communications and alumni director at Notre Dame-West Haven. “Football practice starts tomorrow!” was the gist. I didn’t get a chance to IM Steve back, but my first thought — embarrassingly enough — was, “Huh? Is that…uh… legal?”
