FOOTBALL: New Canaan overwhelms Trumbull

TRUMBULL — Friday was the New Canaan football team’s second trip north to the town of Trumbull in the first three weeks of the season.

This one went a little better than the first.

The GametimeCT seventh-ranked Rams dominated Trumbull 48-7, two weeks after falling to now No. 1 St. Joseph 28-0 in the season opener.

“I still am baffled by what happened the first week, I think St. Joe’s is a good team,” New Canaan coach Lou Marinelli said. “The kids in Trumbull, new coach, new program, I thought those kids played really hard and they’re on the right track. We have a few kids like (Quintin O’Connell) that take over and (Drew Pyne) and I think it was really a team effort.”

Pyne (20-of-22, 388 yards, five touchdowns) hit O’Connell on the first drive of the game with a 20-yard fade, and O’Connell added the second score on the ground from seven yards out.

Trumbull (1-2, 1-2 FCIAC) made it 13-7 midway through the second when Colton Nicholas hit Chris Briganti from six yards out, but New Canaan responded right away as Pyne connected with O’Connell on a perfectly executed 68-yard post pattern.

“You always want to see how your kids are going to respond and I thought we responded really well to that,” Marinelli said. “We gave them a couple of penalty yards there, but it was good for us, because all of the sudden we had to respond and I thought the kids did and the defense played excellent.”

The final 5:13 of the half was the Rams show. After O’Connell’s score, Drew Guida intercepted a pass at the Trumbull 32-yard line before Zach LaPolice took a shovel pass 30 yards for a score.

The next drive resulted in another New Canaan (2-1, 2-1 FCIAC) pick. This time it was Chris Canet diving for a tipped ball at his own 41.