The Ellington/Somers co-op football team didn’t look far to find its next head coach.
Valley folk should know him pretty well, too.
Ansonia alum and former assistant Sean Byrne took over the Pequot program today after spending the last seven years as an assistant under retired coach Keith Tautkus.
The 1995 Ansonia graduate played at Western Connecticut State and then was an offensive line coach under Jack Hunt from 2001 to 2005. The Chargers won two state titles during his tenure there.
Byrne then headed to Ellington, where he developed the team’s weight room program and served in a variety of assistant coaching roles, but was mainly the team’s offensive coordinator.
The Knights have won 19 games and reached the CIAC state playoffs twice over the last two seasons.
Update: The Courant delved into the subject more on Friday.
Vinal Tech/East Hampton bolts Pequot
Also, Ellington/Somers posted the composite 2013 schedule for the Pequot League. In it, you can see the league has also gone the three-division route for this year. That, in turn, led to this find: East Hampton/Vinal Tech is no longer a part of the league.
Citing a desire to be more competitive (you don’t say…), the football co-op is moving over to the Constitution State Conference alongside Platt Tech, Bullard-Havens and Abbott Tech. Vinal Tech will also pick up the banner of the Co-op, so it’ll now be known as Vinal Tech/East Hampton.
The Middletown Press picked up on the nugget Friday.
Said athletic East Hampton athletic director Shaun Russell:
“Both schools felt we needed a football situation that would present a more competitive and realistic opportunity for on-field game success. We needed a change that would provide both an immediate boost and a long-term path that would meet the individual needs of the two partner schools as well as the combined needs of the football program.”
As for the Pequot’s new structure, the league, which stretches all across Connecticut, has now divvied itself into closer, geographical ties. The Northern schools are grouped together, the Northwest (read: Berkshire League and outliers) are grouped together, and the Shoreline League schools are grouped together. Crossover games appear to be determined by previous records (1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, etc…), making it more likely for games between the northern and southern schools.
The previous two-division configuration left little room for scheduling crossover games, leaving the Pequot to almost function as two separate leagues.
Take a gander.
SPEAKING OF WHICH: As some on here have mentioned, there seems to be some grassroots discussion about the Shoreline Schools (the south division on your graphic), breaking away from the Pequot in the near future.
Jimmy Zanor of Shoreline Sports Tweeted Thursday night that “some” Pequot teams were in talks to join the SCC by 2015.
#cthsfb Some Pequot Conference football teams ready to join the SCC in 2015
— Jimmy Zanor (@ShoreLineSports) March 1, 2013
SCC Commissioner Al Carbone said there were no discussions about such an arrangement, but he didn’t rule it out. The SCC would absolutely love at least one more team to fill out its unbalanced, 19-team football configuration. North Branford is already competing in the league for hockey…
Zanor, who covers the Shoreline, has yet to elaborate on his report. But somebody’s talking down on ye ole Shoreline. And since some of our commentators have discussed it, we have to think there’s something afoot.
Where there’s smoke, there’s a burning league.
BUNNELL has come down to five candidates who will interview this week.
STAMFORD will interview its finalists Tuesday and Thursday, according to our own Dave Ruden of The Advocate. There were seven candidates total.
Apparently, LUDLOWE still has teaching job details to work out before it names a coach. Sources have said Platt Tech coach Vincent Camera is at the front of the line at the moment.
The courtship is over.
A few days after we learned East Haven’s job was opened, another closed.
