SPB's High School Football

Stamford's Khairi Fortt carries the ball during an FCIAC football game against Ridgefield High School at Stamford High School in Stamford, Conn. on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2009

Forget what you learned about in school. Welcome to the real age of information, high school football style.

It took some time, and there were a few stragglers late, but we somehow managed to collect all of the scores and news throughout the night and got them all tidied up and packaged for your perusal on our High School Football Page. Of course, if you’re here, you must have been there.

I hit three games Thursday night, attempting to get as much video and as many scoring updates into our live Twitter scoring blog, which you can view below.

I hung with former Central all-state WR/DB Kelleray Gill on the sidelines at Kennedy Stadium in Bridgeport and watched his little brother, Christon, dismantle Ludlowe.

When that got out of hand, I jetted over to Stratford’s Penders Field and hung with correspondent Emmett Spillane as Ben Crick as the Pomperaug Panthers similarly dismantled Stratford.

When that got out of hand, I ran up to Sacred Heart University — on a hunch — to see if Joe Stochmal and his Oxford Wolverines would finally win their first varsity game.

They did, 20-6 over ND-Fairfield

During all of this, I was trying to collect and tweet as many scores as I could for our new live scoring blog feature. Thanks to our many adventurous staff writers, correspondents, competitors, fans and, of course, a workhorse named Jeff Bustraan back in the home office, we managed to get all but two games (Warde’s upset win over Darien, and New Canaan’s 50-7 win over Bassick) consistently updated throughout the night thanks to modern tech: Twitter, email, text messaging and live streaming audio broadcasts. Oh, I even had some help from actual radio (though getting ESPNRadio 1300 in Bridgeport was tricky as the evening progressed).

We managed to get Hamden-Hand, Cheshire-Amity, Newtown-Bunnell, Law-East Haven, Masuk-Weston, Trumbull-Wilton, Seymour-Naugatuck, Woodland-Putnam and, of course, Stamford-Ridgefield. Did you hear about Stamford LB Khairi Fortt (above) getting injured? … The Advocate’s Dave Ruden broke it live right here.

TMI? (“Too much information,” for the uninitiated)

Not for us. And there’s still more to go tonight.

To watch how it all went down, click on the window below. We’ll be doing these scoring updates every week. So please be sure to tune in. Or, better yet, get a Twitter account and join the fun. Just tweet your scoring update with a #cthsfootball hashtag at the end. You can also catch scoring updates on your mobile phone by searching for that same phrase #cthsfootball.

Take a look below. When you’re done reviewing the live blog, let’s hear what you have to say about Thursday’s proceedings before we move on to Friday night.

P.S. In my haste, I made a few blunders in the Connecticut Post‘s print edition of the Oxford football story. Outside of the names I misspelled, I accidentally mistook Mike Giordano for Mike Federowicz. Federowicz broke his leg last year, not Giordano. Sorry guys! It’s correct online.

Stuck at home or in your office tonight? You can follow along all the action by just going on the web.

You can see them in your home, you can (uh) check them in a dome. You can watch them on a plane, you can watch them from a train. You can see them everywhere, watch the games from here and there!

(Dr. Seuss, I am not. He’s better rhymes than I got.)

Ahem.

To start, below we have our experimental but quickly well-received live scoring blog, complete with Twitter updates from all of our correspondents and fans in the field. If you have a Twitter account, and a mobile phone, post your updates and add the hashtag #cthsfootball.

But we’re not the only ones out there giving you all the game-night action.

Check out these local radio and internet radio stations to listen to live broadcasts from across Connecticut:

TONIGHT:

Hamden at Daniel Hand: Live radio stream from “The Coach” George DeMaio on ESPNRadio1300.com and at WAVZ-1300 AM on your dial. Pregame at 6:30, kickoff at 7.

Cheshire at Amity: From Sportingnewsct.com Kickoff is at 7.

Naugatuck at Seymour: From WATR 1320-AM Kickoff is at 7.

FRIDAY NIGHT:

Fairfield Prep at Notre Dame-WH: Live webcast begins at 5:35 with interviews and commentary. Kickoff is at 6. Sportingnewsct.com and Gogreenknights.com

Shelton at West Haven: Again, on Sportingnewsct.com Kickoff is 7 p.m.

Ansonia vs. Hillhouse (at Veterans Stadium, West Haven): Broadcast by DeMaio at ESPNRadio1300.com and at WAVZ-1300 AM on your dial. Pregame is 6:30 p.m., kickoff at 7.

(WSTC/WNLK will begin their broadcasts next week).

Here’s our live scoring blog, which will begin tonight at 5:30.

Greenwich Cardinal Camryn Ferrara receives as Norwalk Bear Marc Lugo moves in to defend during second period action. Greenwich High School Norwalk High School at Greenwich Cardinal Stadium for Greenwich football home opener Tuesday evening, Sept. 16, 2009.

Harding's Julian McCord runs the ball during the second half of Wednesday night's game against Westhill at Kennedy Stadium in Bridgeport, Conn.

Pshhhhew…

It’s been a long, long, long, long, long, long day. After a Tuesday working late into the night following our inaugural high school football preview blog, I cashed out for most of the morning.

I woke up around 11ish with, oh… 43 emails and text messages on my phone all demanding my attention. Just six hours before kickoff, and the task ahead was daunting for the start of the 2009 high school football season.

We had an a ton of projects on the Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, Danbury News-Times and Greenwich Time sites to finish. We had to post our latest feature, the live scoring blog, we had to shore up who was going to post the scores, how it was going to get done, how we were going to get photos into slideshows, and how those were going to be displayed. We needed to get up our overall presentation, complete with graphics and links. We had to make sure all of the sites were running in tip top…

Oh and I had to go to Rocky Hill for a taping of the CTSN High School Football Preview show, hosted by Joe Zone and John Holt, also of WFSB.

Thankfully, the guys let me get there early so I could start moderating our live scoring blog. We had a hitch or two, but once we got the updates rolling, it just sold itself.

Brookfield's 22, Michael Palicz trys for a touch down while New Milford players block during the football game in New Milford Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009.

I did my TV bit (which will be aired on CTSN at 7 p.m. starting Thursday. I know, most of you will be at games, but I’m sure it’ll be replayed. Check local listings. Good times with Rep-Am’s Mark Jaffee and Windsor coach Rob Fleeting). Then went right back to the live blog around 8:30. The guys at WFSB were gracious enough to let me steal one of their computers to see how opening night went down before I finally got out of there at 10 p.m. (Of course, Holt being a fellow Syracuse University grad and Zone a former resident certainly greased the wheels on that deal).

OK, ANYWAY… Quite a few interesting games we had around southwest Connecticut. Because it’s late (early?), I won’t get into the specifics. Let’s just say we had one surprise, one near-surprise and one rout.

Here were your Wednesday night finals:

Westhill 16, Harding 0
New Milford 20, Brookfield 16
Greenwich 35, Norwalk 14

There’s no time to dilly dally. Gotta get some shuteye so I can be up bright and early to do it all over again tonight … only four times as much.

In the meantime, check out all our coverage from last night’s games, plus the remainder of our 2009 preview at our high school football page – which includes capsules on the NVL, SCC and CSC and features on Ansonia and Fairfield Prep — and give me your thoughts on last night’s proceedings. There’s plenty to talk about, so post away and I’ll get to them as soon as I’m no longer comatose.

Big thanks to everyone who helped with our live scoring blog, a replay of which can be found here. And thanks to John Holt and Joe Zone from WFSB and CTSN for inviting me up to rap about high school football. Any time guys, I had a blast.

More fun to come today. Check back here after lunch for more.

I’m gonna pass out.

(Before I do that, just noticed an update on the New Canaan QB situation from Dave Ruden‘s blog: Oulette to Start, Baty to get a series or two)

It’s here, it’s FINALLY here! The start of the 2009 High School Football season. We had one game tonight (East Lyme 34, Enfield 7) and, for us, southwestern Connecticut kicks off Wednesday night with three games on tap.

Norwalk at Greenwich, Westhill vs. Harding (at Kennedy Stadium, Bridgeport), and Brookfield at New Milford.

God I love this time of year.

And, with the kickoff we present to you the final two Elite 8 teams of our weeklong countdown.

Here’s the list so far (which can be found on our High School Football page here).

And here we go…

8. Ansonia
7. Notre Dame-WH
6. Masuk
5. New Canaan
4. Staples
3. Shelton

Up next, of course, was…

No. 2 Greenwich

The Cards had themselves a “down” 8-3 season. And by down we mean, no state playoff berth. These kind of stumbles don’t last very long at this perennial powerhouse. It has been quiet down there, and we think the Cardinals will be right back in the thick of the fight.

So, without further ado, our No. 1 is…

(drumroll….)

No. 1 Hamden

After a great 2008 season, all but a few starters return to help Scott Benoit and the Dragons take care of unfinished business in 2009. This is a strong, strong team … on paper. We’ll see what the Dragons are made of right off the bat when they take on fellow SCC Division I contender Daniel Hand at the Surf Club which should be a tremendous, tremendous game.

Of course, there are plenty of great games out there, if a trip to Madison isn’t your thing.

Here’s the full Week 1 schedule

And, of course the start of our 2009 High School Football Preview which started running Tuesday and will conclude Thursday.

Here are the 2009 SWC football capsules, which are running in Wednesday’s paper.

Here are the 2009 FCIAC capsules, which ran in today’s Connecticut Post

Here’s Rich DePreta’s feature on Central’s Christon Gill

Check back here for more updates and links, or just go to the Connecticut Post’s high school football page

And, finally, THIS IS IMPORTANT: The Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time, Danbury NewsTimes and all of our Brooks Community Newspapers will be using Twitter to give us live updates from all of their games beginning Wednesday night.

Go to the high school football page and check the embedded live blog every night.

Or, if you’re on Twitter, search for #cthsfootball to get updates from ALL our games.

Let’s get this party started!

SPB

Thanks to everyone for a tremendous live blog. For a first time, I thought it was pretty comprehensive.

You had lots and lots of questions out there, and I think Dave Ruden and I did our best to give you the best answers possible.

We’re going to try to do it again some time after Week 1, maybe before the start of Week 2. So keep looking back at the Connecticut Post, Stamford Advocate, Greenwich Time or Danbury NewsTimes for announcements.

If you want to see a transcription of the chat, click on the window below.

Again, thanks for participating and a special thanks to Dave for taking time out from his opening-day soccer reporting to give us his thoughts. We’re trying a lot of new things here, and it can be daunting. But so far, so good…

The New Haven Register’s Top 10 High School Football Poll, now in its 47th year, has finally hit the virtual newsstands.

And here you go:

Preseason
Team…………………………..Points…………Last
1. New Canaan (13-0) (15)……..596………………1
2. Hamden (9-3) (5)……………..555……………NR
3. Masuk (12-1)…………………..479…………….3
4. Shelton (7-4)…………………..316…………….NR
5. Seymour (11-2)……………….301…………….NR
6. New Britain (8-3)……………..295……………NR
7. Montville (9-3)…………………283……………NR
8. Greenwich (8-3)……………….281……………NR
9. Hand (7-4)……………………..280…………..NR
10. Ansonia (12-2)………………277…………….10

Dropped out: Glastonbury (2), New London (4), Brookfield (5), Darien (6), Cromwell (7), Hillhouse (8), Cheshire (9).

First-place votes in parentheses after record.

Others receiving votes: Cromwell (12-1), 268; Notre Dame-West Haven (4-6), 182; New London (12-1), 158; Brookfield (12-1), 146; Staples (6-5), 128; Cheshire (10-3), 115; Glastonbury (1) (13-0) and Ledyard (10-3), 96; Ridgefield (8-3), 82; Darien (11-2), 62; Crosby (9-2), 59; Hillhouse (11-1), 53; Pomperaug (6-5), 45; Xavier (7-4), 42; Berlin (6-4), 40; Southington (7-4), 34; Bunnell (9-2), 27; West Haven (6-4), 16; Trumbull (7-3) and Windsor (9-3), 10; Bloomfield (5-6), 9; East Lyme (4-7) and Wilbur Cross (6-5), 7.
The following voted: Marc Allard, Norwich Bulletin; Bob Barton, New Haven Register; Bill Bloxsom, Hersam-Acorn; Sean Patrick Bowley, Connecticut Post; Don Boyle, SportingNewsCT.com; Bryant Carpenter, Meriden-Record Journal; Henry Chisholm, Connecticut Post; George DeMaio, WELI; Mike DiMauro, The Day of New London; Matt Doran, Norwalk Hour; Ned Griffen, The Day of New London; John Holt, WFSB-3; Mark Jaffee, Waterbury Republican-American; Ken Lipshez, The Herald of New Britain; Mike Madera, Elm City Newspapers; Joe Morelli, New Haven Register; Paul Nichols, Middletown Press; Mike Pucci, New Haven Register; Dave Ruden, Stamford Advocate; Tom Yantz, Hartford Courant; Jimmy Zanor, Shore Line Newspapers.

My quick take: This is much, much better than the inaugural CSWA poll.

Nothing too, too crazy up there.  (No Cantons or Cheney Techs getting votes).

Glastonbury, Cromwell and Brookfield are out of the Top 10 and replaced (rightly, I believe) with Montville, Shelton and Hand

New Canaan is your No. 1 (which I didn’t agree with in my Elite 8… but whatever.  Voters seem to like saying it is the defending No. 1′s ranking to lose) Ansonia is about where I thought they’d be, Seymour a tad high for my tastes, but whatever.

Overall, it’s a good opening ranking, in my opinion.

We’ll take your comments now.

A good pickup by New Haven Register high school football reporter/historian/God Bob Barton who picked up this little tidbit on his football radar screen:

New Jersey power Bergen Catholic will play Westfield, Mass. at Ken Strong Stadium on Saturday at 2 p.m.

Apparently, the two schools compromised on this neutral site match smack dab in the middle of our country. After a few searches, I found little information on this game (and no link from NHR), but I was told Barton had it listed in his annual preseason games-to-watch column today.

Personally, I have no real interest in this game outside of cursory curiosity. I’d also be interested to see how many people this game draws to Ken Strong Stadium, which I’m sure is contracted to take some of the gate.

An interesting point from Ray Curren of Elm City Newspapers: Fellow SCC team Hillhouse can’t use Ken Strong Stadium to play Ansonia, but Bergen Catholic can?

Some grudges will never die.

Got anything going on tonight? Wanna talk high school football? Well, look no further than right here.

Join yours truly, Sean Patrick Bowley, the online sports producer for Hearst Connecticut Newspapers, in a live chat with Advocate writer Dave Ruden tonight at 7 p.m.

We’ll take a look at the upcoming high school football season, which starts Wednesday night with three regional games, and continues Thursday and Friday.

We’ll take as many questions as we can over the course of an hour. Hope to see you all there.