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Hey fans! Hope you’ve had an excellent week. If you’ve been out of town (or out of the loop) here is what you’ve missed for week 2 of the High School season.

Warde Field Hockey is 3-0

This wouldn’t be monumental news except for the fact that Warde field hockey only won three games all last year. The Mustangs have given up just one goal in their three games and that came with 38 seconds left in Warde’s game with Ludlowe. Warde could move to 4-0 with a win over Amity and could be 5-1 when it goes to Stamford on Oct. 6.

Ludlowe boys soccer escapes with tie at Norwalk

Todd Kalif covered this game and I believe that this bodes well for the Falcons. If Norwalk is that good and Ludlowe managed to squeak out a tie with them, that could mean good things down the line. The Falcons are still unbeaten, which any coach will take, and the confidence (and more importantly points) are growing.

Ludlowe girls volleyball playing lackadaisically

The Falcons struggled to get going at Ridgefield on Monday and lost the first two games. Ludlowe rebounded to force a game 5 but lost 16-14 in the final game. The Falcons lost the opening game on Wednesday, 26-24, to Norwalk. The Bears are 1-3 on the year, and if Ludlowe has visions of FCIAC playoffs and state competition, they should be beating Norwalk more handily than that. Head coach Meghan Eaton is frustrated with the poor starts her team has started to. I think they’ll turn it around.

High School Football Picks

Ridgefield 28, Ludlowe 0

Warde 42, Wilcox Tech 6

Daniel Hand 24, Prep 6

New Fairfield 30, ND 7

Odds and Ends

Two wins will clinch the division for the Yankees this weekend. I think they do it… I’m not buying the end of the Patriots dynasty. As long as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick are involved this team is still in the mix. They’re going to go off on Sunday as long as Wes Welker plays… I’m probably the only person that is excited, but NHL starts on Thursday! My beloved Devils start Saturday against the Flyers…

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Apparently I have more clout through the FCIAC than I thought I did. My pick in my “Pickens’ Perspective” column from last week of Ludlowe over Central inspired the Bridgeport Central team more than anyone intended. Central quarterback Christon Gill and the rest of the Hilltoppers used my 20-12 Ludlowe pick as motivation as Central destroyed Ludlowe, 53-28 on Thursday night at Kennedy Stadium.

Ludlowe turned the ball over five times, and quarterback Rob Ferrara was knocked out of the game in the first quarter with a hip pointer. Backup Mike Sheehan filled in admirably, throwing for 199 yards and three touchdowns. Sheehan was intercepted three times and fumbled in the end zone for a Central touchdown.

Quotes from the game:

Gill on my pick: “We just came out there real fired up. We took offense to that- how they talk about us and how they talk about us.  I don’t like to look in the newspaper, but that one I had to. I took real offense to that. Take it upon yourself and do what your position is.”

McCloskey on Ferrara’s injury: “That hip pointer, that’s a hard thing to deal with. We’ll have to see what happens.”

McCloskey on Sheehan: “I have to give him a ton of credit. He came in, he’s really a good option quarterback. He was able to run the rest of our stuff. He did a tremendous job.”

McCloskey on Gill: “He’s a real good athlete. He puts the ball on the money and he runs the ball and he runs his offense well.”

Central head coach Dave Cadelina on Gill’s progression: “When he came in as a sophomore, he was just a little guy among men there and now he’s a guy in the spotlight.”

Gill is being looked at by a number of Division 1 and 1-AA colleges including Penn St., Buffalo, UConn, Stony Brook and others. His dream is to go to Penn St., but would be satisfied going anywhere.

Warde beats Darien

Todd Kalif (the Citizen’s freelancer) was at this and said that it was sloppily played, but Warde made more plays when it counted in the Mustangs’ 14-0 win over the Blue Wave. Craig Lowery had a big game, scoring on a touchdown catch from Eric Burns and intercepting a pass.

Alex Delaney tallied Warde’s other score and ran for a 2-point conversion. The Mustangs thwarted each and every Darien drive. Head coach Duncan Dellavolpe (who got a win in his first game as head coach) called it “The biggest win I’ve ever been a part of.” Dellavolpe was involved in three straight FCIAC championships and last year’s Class MM championship at New Canaan.

Friday’s section

Check out the Citizen for Warde field hockey’s shocking win over Staples on Wednesday, plus Ludlowe girls soccer’s season opening win at Stamford. Here is a quick rundown of the results that happened today, besides the football games:

Football: Oxford 20, Notre Dame-Fairfield 6. This is Oxford High School’s first ever win in varsity football.

Girls Soccer: Darien 1, Warde 0.

Girls Volleyball: Central 3, Warde 1.

As always, take good care.

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Today was day one for the fall sports season. I was at a pair of boys soccer games, and both ended in ties.

Warde 0, Stamford 0

Senior Warde goalkeeper Matt Freedman saved the day for the Mustangs as the  captain stopped a number of Black Knights chances. The Mustangs garnered few chances, and just a couple of corner kicks. Stamford used defensive pressure to keep the Mustangs offsides. For a full game story with quotes, read Friday’s Fairfield Citizen.

Ludlowe 1, Danbury 1

Falcons senior captain Casper Gimand tallied a goal at 5:07 of the first half, the first goal of the season for Ludlowe. Danbury tallied a goal about 10 minutes later. Gimand and fellow Falcon captain Chris Heyn had chances in the second half, but could not tallied. The game was entertaining and back and forth, but ended in a 1-1 tie.

Odds and Ends

Ludlowe girls volleyball won its first match of the season, a 3-2 win over St. Joseph… The Falcons field hockey team fell to Greenwich, 3-1 in Greenwich. The Falcons took a 1-0 lead throughout the first half, but Greenwich scored three straight… Ludlowe starting softball pitcher Becky Foster is going to basketball for the Falcons basketball team… Here’s hoping that there is not a monsoon tomorrow for Warde vs. Staples field hockey. Also I’m hopeful for the Ludlowe/Central game is not affected by the weather either.

Good luck and I’ll chime in with more tomorrow. Take good care.

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The season starts tomorrow. Listed below are my predictions for records for the public schools. I’ve gone through game-by-game for each team and predicted how they will finish. As always, if anyone agrees, disagrees or cares to comment then do so.

Ludlowe

Football (2008 record 4-7): 5-5

Boys Soccer (2008 6-7-3): 7-7-2

Girls Soccer: (2008 6-8-3): 9-5-2

Field Hockey (2008 3-11-1): 5-10-1

Girls Volleyball (2008 13-7): 12-6

Warde

Football (2008 record 3-8): 5-5

Boys Soccer (2008 9-6-4): 9-5-2

Girls Soccer (2008 12-5-2): 9-5-2

Field Hockey (2008 3-11-2): 4-11-1

Girls Volleyball (2008 7-10): 8-10

Links

The box score for Sacred Heart’s 52-21 loss at Holy Cross. http://64.246.64.33/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=conngroup&page=cfoot/scores/final/boxscore.aspx?GAMEID=25262

My column from last week. It has some other predictions for the 2009 fall season. http://www.connpost.com/fairfield/ci_13313144

Chris Elsberry’s column on James Blake’s latest Grand Slam exit. http://www.connpost.com/elsberry/ci_13284413

Odds and Ends

The Giants will need to score more points if they are going to win games. They let the Redskins hang around a little too long yesterday. I still think that them starting the year 4-1 is not only probable, but likely… AJ Burnett needs to get his act together. Too many bad starts in a row… The Red Sox are letting the Rangers hang around, mostly because Josh Beckett can’t buy a decision. He finally got his 15th win on Saturday… As  a USC fan, I loved watching Matt Barkley’s game-winning drive on Saturday night against Ohio St. Those are the drives that define careers… Mark Sanchez looked great on Sunday for the Jets, but the real story was the Jets defense. They could win a lot of games if they play like that…. It’ll be interesting to see how Tom Brady and the Pats do. From a selfish perspective, I’d like to see Wes Welker play well (he’s on my fantasy team)… SHU football looks bad, but don’t let the scores fool you. Marist and Holy Cross are better than them. We’ll see how they do in NEC play… Serena Williams needs to cool out. I know that the foot foul was a bad call and shouldn’t be made in that spot, but it happened. Deal with it…

Follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/pickensfcsports. As always, take good care.

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The Fairfield Citizen’s Fall Sports Preview will come out on Sept. 15. We will feature a different sport for our preview cover, and I am in the process of getting quotes from coaches and team members to write previews. If anyone reading has any information that will be helpful for the preview, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Links

Here is my story on Nolan Paige, the No. 1 player 16U tennis player in New England, http://www.connpost.com/fairfield/ci_13267020

Here is the AP story on James Blake’s round 2 win over Oliver Rochus. http://www.connpost.com/sports/ci_13266013

Chris Elsberry’s column on Blake: http://www.connpost.com/elsberry/ci_13265772

Connecticut Post’s William Paxton’s column on SHU quarterback Dale Fink. The Pioneers open tonight at home against Marist. http://www.connpost.com/paxton/ci_13231086

Odds/Ends

For those who didn’t stay up late enough to see LeGarrette Blount’s punch on a Boise St. player from Thursday night, let me tell you, it is bad. The Pac-10 needs to take serious action with this kid. The fact that it ended up all over ESPN didn’t help either. I think a season suspension should be in order… For all those of you that are comparing 2009′s Yankees to 1998, slow down. Remember that the Yankees won 100+ games in 2004 as well… The fact that high School football starts on a Wednesday in this state is absurd. But then again so is playing a state semi-final game on a Tuesday… Anyone want to predict which of the 4s Fairfield town high school football teams will end up with the most wins??