H.S. football season off to roaring start

The first week of the high school football season is in the books and if the rest of the year is anything like the opening week, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a helluva ride.

The local teams

My goodness, that was some game Friday night between Norwich Free Academy and Xavier, won by NFA 40-37 on a 15yard touchdown pass from quarterback Shea McManaway with 15 seconds left in the game.

Make no mistake, Xavier quarterback Will Levis is the real deal, but McManaway was far and away the best player on the field Friday night. Look at these numbers.

He completed 25-of-45 passes for 332 yards and was a terrifying 21for-31 for 251 yards in the second half. Xavier was helpless against him. He threw four touchdown passes of 29, 3, 35 and 15 yards and ran for a 14-yard score and a 1-yard TD. And he did it in the clutch.

His team trailed 23-7 in the second quarter and he brought it right back to trail just 23-19 at the half. NFA went ahead 26-23 in the third, but Levis threw two TDs to give the Falcons a 37-26 lead.

McManaway, however, was just warming up. In the final five minutes, with the game on the line, the kid was off-the-charts, throwing two touchdown passes, converting on fourth down three times in the two drives to win the game.

It was as great a clutch performance as you will see.

It may be early, but the Falcons now face a huge game Friday at Palmer Field with Newtown, a 27-0 winner over Pomperaug. To go 0-2 with six of its remaining eight games on the road is not where Xavier wants to be.

Up the river a bit in rainy Wethersfield, Middletown used a big second half to run away from the Eagles 29-12. While the weather at Xavier was just fine, a monsoon struck Wethersfield in the second quarter.

“It rained so hard the refs asked if we wanted to suspend the game in the second quarter, then come out and tack it onto the second half,” said MHS coach Sal Morello. “But we kept playing, but no one could do much. We wanted to throw the ball, but the weather made that tough, so we had to change our game plan a bit.”

Middletown ran the ball for 325 yards and QB Stone Belzo threw just eight times, completing three for 50 yards and a touchdown.

Middletown, which scored on Belzo’s 25-yard TD pass to DeAaron Lawrence in the first quarter, got a safety in the second quarter to lead 8-0 at the break. Wethersfield got a TD on what Morello called a broken play in the third, but then the Blue Dragons exploded in the fourth for three touchdowns and see you later.

“I thought our defense played very well,” said Morello. “Our secondary was very good and on offense, I thought Belzo did a great job. We hurt ourselves by fumbling the ball away twice in the red zone, and that’s something we have to fix. But overall, I thought we played pretty well for a first game.”

Middletown opens at home Friday with Bristol Eastern, a 14-7 loser to E.O. Smith Friday.

Cromwell/Portland opened with a blowout 5420 win over Rockville Friday. Quarterback Bryce Karstetter had a big night, completing 11-of-16 for three touchdowns. Dianta Highsmith, a guy coach Randell Bennett said is one to watch, was a monster on defense, according to Bennett.

“We played well together,” said Bennett. “We overcame some early game jitters and penalties and our defense played really well in the first half.”

C/P hosts North Branford, a 27-21 winner over Granby, Friday at 6 p.m. at Pierson Park.

In other area action, Prince Tech held off Vinal/ East Hampton/Goodwin 28-18, Valley, which apparently merely reloads instead of rebuilds, crushed Ellington 33-7, Coginchaug/HaleRay got off on the right foot by beating Canton 36-20 and H-K avenged last year’s loss to SMSA, 49-32.