While you were all busy voting on our players of the week on the main site (what? you haven’t done it? Well get busy: http://connpost.com/highschoolfootball) I finally got a chance to cut together highlights from Saturday’s big performance from — yes, I’ll say it — the state’s No. 1 football team.
New Canaan and quarterback Turner Baty sliced and diced St. Joseph, 35-25, on a soggy day at Dunning Stadium. Baty, the California transplant, threw for over 300 yards for the second consecutive week as the starter. He hit seven different receivers, three for touchdowns. No matter what St. Joseph threw at them, the Rams stayed poised. They had an answer for everything.
Fourth and long? No problem. Penalty backed them up to the 9-yard line? Zip, zip, zip right back down the field for a score. Cody Newton caught six balls for 160 yards. Kevin Macari caught a bunch of passes, too — including a 43-yard touchdown — with a cast on his hand.
While the New Canaan defense had its hands full with big fullback Tyler Matakevich, its defense were able to largely contain QB Joe Della Vecchia and his receiving corps enough to where Matakevich’s big gains were the only real offense of the afternoon. New Canaan returned an early fumble for a score and, in the second half, picked off a pair of passes, which turned into quick strikes from Baty and a 35-12 lead after three quarters.
The Cadets appeared to get burned by a couple non-calls. One was what one reporter called an obvious fumble in the second quarter (impossible to tell in this video), and the other was a called incomplete pass that most on the sidelines believed should have been ruled intentional grounding. I look at it again and it’s clearly a fumble.
While New Canaan quickly took advantage of their good karma with touchdowns. St. Joseph couldn’t create its own fortune on this afternoon. New Canaan showed it’s a worthy No. 1 pick right now. They travel to Greenwich in two weeks, then Central before the FCIAC championship game.
Quick mea culpa here: I had a tough time getting to New Canaan from New Haven in time for kickoff. I took too much time leaving home and the rain turned the Merritt Parkway into a messin spots. I missed most of the first quarter scoring. Because of camera issues and the buckets of water that soaked my bones, I also missed half of St. Joseph’s brief fourth-quarter comeback attempt — particularly Pat Mulligan’s awesome 60-yard fumble recovery return for a touchdown.
Also included is the climax of the touching Pete Demmerle jersey retirement ceremony at halftime. Demmerle, an all-state player at New Canaan and later an All-American at Notre Dame, died in 2007 at age 53 from an awful, awful disease called ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The memory of his great days at New Canaan, and the rest of his life are ensured to live forever.
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after watching the game on msg varsity, the fumble call in the 2nd was still tough to tell if he was down, but it looked like the ground caused the fumble…i think everyone got cuught up in the st joe’s coaching staff reaction…
and then the “fumble” called an incomplete was a wash. baty clearly had both knees on the ground when they called it an incomplete pass. so the mess up by the refs was that they did not credit St. Joes with the three yard sack
Comment by fan — October 28th, 2009 @ 8:28 am
SPB i am a die hard ram fan but ill tell you st. joes was a good football team. i would not be surprised if they dont lose again the rest of the year. 44 is a very tough runner. if he works on his speed alittle in the offseason he will be unstopable next year. i wish we could have seen these two offenses on a nice sunny day to see what kind of numbers could have been put up.
Comment by prophet — October 28th, 2009 @ 8:45 am
Watching New Canaan is like watching the Yankees. Great program to being with is delivered a difference making “free agent” a week before the season…Couple that with the MLB playoff caliber officiating and world class announcer in the booth…it really felt like Yankee Stadium.
Comment by Dr. Von Nostran — October 28th, 2009 @ 9:21 am
Trivia Question:
Since 1969 the New Haven Register has been giving a state MVP award to the states outstanding football player.
Six people from the FCIAC has won them. Can you name them?
I will give you the answer this afternoon.
Comment by jjs — October 28th, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Check that: Seven players have won MVP.s
Comment by jjs — October 28th, 2009 @ 10:07 am
Well, fan, this isn’t the NFL and (thankfully) and we don’t get to nitpick every pixel on a replay. You’re probably right on the second call. Looking at it again, the knees are down and it’s a sack. Regardless, it had little bearing on the game.
Comment by Sean Patrick Bowley — October 28th, 2009 @ 11:59 am
matakevich reminds me of scott lutrusmin high school a little bit,maybee a bit more powerful,and not as fast,but similar!
Comment by the ruler — October 28th, 2009 @ 1:29 pm
The sack would have been a 10 yard loss not a 3 yard loss
Comment by The_Guy — October 28th, 2009 @ 1:48 pm
I still think that ball should have been ruled a fumble. Baty’s arm is up, but he has no control over the ball as he goes down (hence why I don’t believe it could have been grounding or incomplete).
Comment by Sean Patrick Bowley — October 28th, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
Trivia add-on:
Which NHRegister MVP’s were also CTPOST (Bridgeport Post) mvp’s?
Not just FCIAC, but regionally.
I can only think of 2 for sure.
Comment by slayterdeet88 — October 28th, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
The seven MYPS are:
1969 Pete Demerle New Canaan
1970 Kurt HOrton New Canaan
1976 Tony Elliott Harding
1990 Scott Overbeck New Canaan
1991 Daryl Porter Trumbull
1993 Chris Silvestri New Canaan
2002 John Sullivan Greenwich
Comment by jjs — October 28th, 2009 @ 3:32 pm
Who’s Scott Lutrus? Just kidding. I can see similarities between the two. He had a monster senior year at Brookfield.
Comment by MasukRules — October 28th, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
sean if baty was holding the ball in his throwing hand and his knees were on the ground how should that have been a fumble. maybe when it happened in the game but now that you saw the replay on msg where do you see that. even if you over turn both calls, do you really feel NC was in any danger of losing that game? if those teams play 10 times NC wins 8 or 9, but again im biased. i think st. joes is very very good, i just think NC is the hands down best team in the state, and everyone will agree with me in about 3 weeks.
Comment by prophet — October 28th, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
No… it had no bearing on the game. Just something I’m debating myself.
Comment by Sean Patrick Bowley — October 29th, 2009 @ 12:42 am
the bottom line is that the refs made some terrible calls. rumor on the street is that the head referee actually quit reffing high school football games because he said its not worth getting screamed at all saturday long for $85. Hey what are you gonna do they are high school refs, if they were any good they would not be doing high school games
Comment by prophet — October 29th, 2009 @ 8:07 am