Impressions from the H.S. gridiron

Some thoughts on the high school football weekend. Middletown’s defense is really good. Yeah, the Blue Dragons went through the motions for a good hunk of the first half, but 35-0 is, well, 35-0. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the offense in the first half and I think the jury is still out on how effective a running game Middletown will have.

But in Xzavier Reyes — and that’s how he spells his name — Stone Belzo, Tyreece Lumpkin and DeShaun Bradshaw, the Dragons certainly have speed.

In the second half, the Dragons put together two long drives and quarterback Belzo was very good, completing 9-of-10 second half passes. The strength of this team is up front, and every coach loves that. Both the offensive and defensive lines are very good. The special teams and the kicking game look to be first-rate. Kicker Mike Aresco put five of six kickoffs through the end zone for touchbacks, forcing Eastern to start from its own 20.

The score might have been worse, but the Central Connecticut Conference mercy rule says that once the margin reaches 35, the clock goes to running time. MHS scored with 9:39 to play, so nearly 10 minutes was played in running time, for which we were grateful.

In Wethersfield and Bristol Eastern, Middletown was hardly challenged. Hartford Public, this Friday’s opponent, is 0-2, but brings a good deal of speed. Bristol Central, Platt and Windsor are all very good teams. While not much is known about Hudson Catholic of New Jersey, Middletown’s opponent in week eight, it won its opener 46-19 over Immaculate Conception High in the Garden State.

I can’t go into details, but multiple sources told me that Middletown came very close to scheduling a game with New Canaan this season, a game Middletown very much wanted to play. That would have been fun and would have sparked state-wide interest.

When that fell through, MHS could find no state team to play, I’m told, nor could it find any public school in adjacent states. Hence, Hudson Catholic in a one-time deal.

I wasn’t slightly surprised that Xavier whipped Newtown. Each year the Nighthawks beat up on the Class M and L teams of the South West Conference, then gets into the Class LL playoffs and don’t do very well. It’s another example of the truism that if you are an LL school, you should play as many LL teams as you can.

Newtown did that in taking on Xavier. Result? 3014, Xavier.

Quarterback Will Levis had a big game and trust me, he will have more. The Falcons will be favored to go to 2-1 at Wilbur Cross Friday afternoon, although historically Xavier has struggled on Friday afternoons in New Haven, and the Governors have speed.

Cromwell/Portland coach Randell Bennett may be a rookie coach, but he talks coachspeak like a veteran. Prior to the game with North Branford, he spoke of the Thunderbirds as akin to the Green Bay Packers. I listened, wrote it, and didn’t believe a word of it. Bennett’s Panthers proceeded to blast the young T-Birds 44-0.

Valley’s Tim King has been around the block a few times and didn’t bother to make Morgan sound like Alabama and the 44-7 outcome was precisely what everyone figured.

The surprise Friday was Vinal/East Hampton/Goodwin losing 13-0 to Amistad. Coach Joe Cefaratti was genuinely upbeat prior to the game and yeah, he figured this was a ‘W’. The 13-0 loss must have been a real disappointment.

Coginchaug/Hale-Ray (2-0) doubled its win total from last year, pulling a mild 34-26 upset over Haddam-Killingworth Saturday afternoon

Wesleyan loses

Wesleyan lost at Middlebury 30-27 Saturday. No question a disappointment. The Cards trailed 30-13 going to the fourth but scored twice to cut the lead to three. Although they got the ball back twice in the closing minutes, they couldn’t get on the board. Quarterback Mark Piccirillo was 39-for-53 for 432 yards and four TDs, but the running attack — and Middlebury’s, too — was nonexistent as MHS alum Dario Highsmith was the leading rusher with 11 yards. Ouch!

Middlebury QB Jared Lebowitz was 22-for-44 for 352 yards. There were 20 penalties in the game.

The Cards have another toughie this Saturday at 6 p.m. at Andrus Field when they take on Tufts. Obviously if Wesleyan is going to contend for the NESCAC title, it must win Saturday.

Stars of Week Two

This week’s stars are Xavier quarterback Will Levis, who threw four TD passes, Middletown defensive lineman Derrick Vereen who had two and a half sacks, plus two solo tackles, plus an assist, Cromwell/Portland’s Brent Robbins, who rushed for 160 yards on 13 carries, good for two touchdowns and a two-point conversion, Middletown’s Nico Cavaliere, who ran back the opening kickoff for a 70-yard TD and caught a 12-yard TD pass and Coginchaug/Hale-Ray’s QB Eli Rivera who threw for three touchdowns and ran for the game winner in the fourth quarter.

St. Joseph in Class S. Really?

The unfairness of schools without borders playing against schools with borders bothers me, as readers no doubt remember. While I am a proponent of a separate basketball tournament for borderless schools, I am not in favor of that in football.

But I do advocate that all borderless schools — not counting technical high schools — play in Class L or LL. This fall St. Joseph High of Trumbull is the new poster school of football unfairness.

St. Joe plays in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference. It is a Class S school by enrollment, which is irrelevant.

What is relevant is its schedule. In week one it played Class L state champion and, at the time, No. 1 ranked Class L New Canaan. St. Joe won, 38-35. This week it crushed Class LL Fairfield Warde. The rest of the schedule is Darien, Wilton, Ridgefield, Stamford, Bridgeport Central, Staples, Brien McMahon and Trumbull.

Every one of those schools is Class LL. Come tournament time, the CIAC places St. Joe in Class S. That is beyond unfair. It is unfair to every other Class S school and is also unfair to the St. Joe kids. Realistically, the only Class S school that should stand in its way is Ansonia. All those other Class S schools that dream of titles? Forget it. If any were to beat St. Joe, that would be on the Miracle Scale.

And what does St. Joe gain by playing down come tourney time?

I would like for the CIAC officials to explain how this makes sense, why this is fair, how this fosters the oftstated CIAC goals of sportsmanship and fair play. Last winter, seeing Trinity Catholic of the FCIAC manhandle Westbrook in the Class S boys basketball final was disgraceful. This has the potential of something worse.

I give credit to St. Joe for playing in the FCIAC. But it should take the next logical step and play in the Class LL playoffs, not in Class S. Hey, maybe some of those Class LL teams will knock off St. Joe during the season and maybe the Cadets it won’t make the playoffs. You can bet a lot of Class S schools around the state are rooting exactly for that.

That St. Joe is in Class S — or any other borderless school in Class S or M — is, in a word, unfair. The CIAC and the St. Joe’s administration should be ashamed of themselves.

Paul Nichols

Paul Nichols, a retired sports writer and sports editor of The Middletown Press, passed away last week at the far too young age of 71. While at The Press he was ahead of his time in believing that girls sports deserved every bit as much coverage as boys sports and saw to it that girls sports, particularly basketball, got the coverage they deserved. He was a regular at Mercy games, even continuing to attend games after his tenure at The Press ended.

Girls sports — especially Mercy High sports — are in his debt.

Many don’t know that he was also a terrific PA announcer for Hand High football, announcing the Tigers’ games in coach Larry Ciotti’s golden days in Madison.

Paul got his start covering high school sports, along with the late Hal Levy, with the Shoreline Times, a group of weeklies that used to blanket the towns along the shore. The dynamic duo covered the stuffing out of high school sports all along the Shoreline including Madison, Guilford, Westbrook, Clinton, Old Saybrook, Branford and all the rest.

When Nichols came to Middletown, he still covered some of those teams, but threw himself into covering Middletown area high school sports and Wesleyan football — he had the football beat at WesU for years — with the same energy he used to cover the schools along the coast.

Jimmy Zanor, formerly the Press sports editor and now a writer for The Norwich Bulletin, also got his start in the Shoreline papers, learning under Levy and Nichols.

“The office was in an old school house above a gas station in Guilford,” said Zanor. “The sports department has its own little corner on the first floor, Every Sunday morning all of those high school kids would come in to write up their weekly reports. It was Sportswriting 101. Some of the best sports writers this state ever produced got their start there. Paul, as an editor and writer, was a big part of that.

“He had a calm demeanor and a real helpful, reassuring way with young writers just starting out in the business. I remember when he left the Shoreline group to take the job at The Middletown Press. He may have been in Middletown, but I’ll always believe that his heart was in that little school house.”

Nichols also served his country in the Army and saw action in Vietnam. He never talked much about that, but once in an unguarded moment one late night at The Press, he shared how sudden loud noises always made him jump and brought back memories.

Zanor said it best: “There are scrapbooks in homes all along the Connecticut shoreline with clippings with Paul Nichols’ byline. That, to me, is his greatest legacy.”

Condolences to the family and may this good man rest in peace.

Here and there

Isaiah Thompkins, MHS alum in the Class of 2015, has been named a captain of the Ivy League’s Brown University football team.

Most schools across Connecticut are seeing declining enrollment as the state birth rate continues to decline, but Middletown High is bucking the trend ... according to Principal Colleen Weiner, MHS has 1,326 students, up 56 from last year’s official Oct. 1 enrollment of 1,270 ... that’s significant as all schools’ athletic classifications depend on enrollment ... most of the girls sports at MHS are already Class LL, and many boys sports, now Class L, may well cross that Class LL threshold if trends continue.

If you missed it, catch reruns of the YES Network’s Centerstage production in which Michael Kay interviews Yankee announcer John Sterling ... Sterling comes across as genuine — which he is — down-toearth, and funny ... he is an acquaintance of mine and he is a warm, engaging, thoroughly decent man.

I know some don’t like his home run calls, but hey, sports is entertainment and Sterling gets that ... when Todd Frazier hits a home run, Sterling exclaims: “He’e the Todd-father,” and, “In Todd we trust.”

For Aaron Judge it’s, “All rise, here come the Judge,” and for Starlin Castro, it’s, “Star light, Star bright, Starlin hit one with all his might.”

But my favorite is Chase Headley. “Headley is deadly ... oh, you can bank on Chase.”

You want intricate, minute baseball analysis? Listen to Mets’ announcers who are very good at insight and bring all the inside baseball stuff the layman might not know in describing all the details of that train wreck at Citi Field ... but for enthusiasm, drama and plain fun — and often pretty spot-on stuff — listen to Sterling ... in the end, despite all the analysis, percentages, sabremetrics and statistics, Sterling nails it when he says as he often does to sidekick Suzyn Waldman, “You can’t predict baseball, Suzyn.” I love him. The Middletown board of education will announce its new superintendent tonight ... the board insisted, I’m told, in locking out any principal or teacher or any school employee — you know, the people who actually deal with kids every day — from the process ... here’s hoping the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers who sit on the board made a good decision ... might be nice to see these folks at games and plays and concerts now and then, huh?

Pat Charles, the outgoing superintendent, came to all kinds of events to see kids ... here’s a hope the new super does exactly the same kinds of things and doesn’t lock him or herself away on Hunting Hill Ave., pushing papers across the desk ... hope he/she realizes that the priorities are kids, parents, teachers, community, board, council/mayor ... in that order.

Speaking of kids, the band directors at MHS — Megan Busath and Michael Cho — report that the crackerjack MHS marching band now has over 200 members ... its halftime show featuring not only the band, but flag corps and dance team, is spectacular ... even if football is not your thing, you should get out to Rosek-Skubel Stadium on a Friday night to see the show ... pretty cool ... the band is marching in Disney World in April.

Former Xavier soccer star Owen Stevenson was named Rookie of the Week in the Commonwealth Coastal Conference ... Stevenson, who attends Salve Regina, had two goals in his team’s 4-0 win over Newbury recently ... good for him.

Former Xavier quarterback Tim Boyle has completed 53-of-81 passes for 522 yards for Eastern Kentucky through two games... EKU is 0-2 with losses to Western Kentucky and Kentucky U ... Boyle has thrown for three TDs ... Former MHS running back Hunter Belzo has rushed for 248 yards and three TDs for Springfield College’s (3-0).

In area action Friday ...Xavier’s soccer team is 1-1 following a 4-1 win over Foran ... the Middletown High girls soccer team is 3-0 after a 3-2 win over Northwest Catholic ... the Middletown High boys are 1-2 after an overtime loss to Northwest on a penalty kick ... the Mercy volleyball team won its first, 3-1 over West Haven following two losses to open the season ... Middletown’s volleyball team is 0-3 following a 3-1 loss to East Hartford.

Allow me to digress ... Middletown High’s Columbia blue jerseys with black numbers are almost impossible to read from the press box at Rosek-Skubel Stadium, especially on plays on the far side of the field ... all of us in the press box Friday went nuts trying to figure out who was running the ball, catching the ball and the like ... it doesn’t help that the press box is so far from the field ... coach Sal Morello said his team will wear the navy jerseys with white numerals Friday ... bless him ... the next time they wear those Columbia jerseys will be too soon.

Back to results ... HK’s volleyball team is 3-1 after its 3-0 win over Coginchaug (2-1) ... Valley’s volleyball club is 3-1 after its 3-1 win over Hale-Ray (21) ... East Hampton’s boys soccer team is 2-1-1 after a 14-0 — that’s right! — win over Public Safety of Hartford ... East Hampton’s girls soccer team is 2-1 after its win over Coginchaug (02) ... Cromwell’s girls are 2-0-1 after beating H-K (02-1), 1-0 ... Portland’s girls beat Old Saybrook 2-0 and Mercy went to 2-0-1 with a 2-1 win over Branford and Mercy’s swim team beat Middletown 93-80.

Question: SMSA/University/Classical’s mascot is a Tigerhawk. Exactly what is a Tigerhawk? Inquiring minds want to know.

Observation: The New York Yankees could be a very dangerous team in the postseason ... here’s hoping.