It’s crunch time for the fall season

Time once again to empty out the notebook, but first, a request: Could the good people at the controls of the CCC schedule please take a hard look at restoring the Middletown-Berlin football rivalry?

** Today, you can see some really good girls soccer at Mercy High School when the Tigers host Shelton at 4 p.m. If Mercy wins, the teams would finish the regular season with 14-1-1 records, so the top seed in the SCC tournament is at stake. The tournament begins on Saturday.

Shelton (2-0 on Sept. 28) is the only team to beat Mercy this season. Since then, Mercy is unbeaten in seven matches. Shelton has won 13 in a row. The Gaels also have the best record in Class LL, while Mercy still has a shot at the best record in Class L.

** First place in the Pequot Conference’s Sassacus Division will be on the line Friday night in Deep River, where Valley Regional/Old Lyme hosts Cromwell/ Portland. This would have been a clash of unbeaten teams, but Old Saybrook/Westbrook upset Cromwell 35-20 on Saturday.

Valley’s defense has allowed only 28 points in the team’s 5-0 start. Cromwell (5-1) can put up points, although the offense was kept in check by Coginchaug in a 13-6 win and it ran into a good defense in OSW. Valley and Cromwell shared last year’s Sassacus Division title. Friday’s outcome will either leave the teams neck and neck or have Valley with a two-game edge in the loss column.

** Xavier passed the first test in its quest for a cross country triple — conference, state and New England titles — by winning the SCC championship at East Shore Park in New Haven. The conference title was the third in a row for the Falcons and 12th overall as they easily outdistanced Shelton, 33-66.

The 2-3-4 finish by seniors Will Curran, Peter Schulten and Dil-

lon Selfors slammed the door. Curran and Shelton’s Robert Dillon both crossed the finish line in 16 minutes, 5 seconds, but Dillon was declared the winner by two-tenths of a second. They were followed by Schulten’s 16:15 and Selfors’ 16:18. Freshman Eamon Burke (10th) and Julen Lujambio (14th) rounded out the Falcons’ five scorers. In the JV race, Xavier sophomore Adam Anziano finished second.

** Back to the hope for a Middletown-Berlin football revival. I was a witness to the Redcoats’ 41-35 win over RHAM at Sage Park on Friday night, and it got me thinking about how much the two programs have in common still.

That list is long. Ask any diehard fan and he/she can tell you about the history and tradition that bind the two together. The programs contend for the playoffs year in and year out. Both schools care a great deal about football. There is excellent coaching, comparable roster sizes, loyal fan followings, very good marching bands. Only 12 miles, or 19 minutes of drive time if you respect the speed limit, separate their home fields.

When the Connecticut High School Football Alliance meets after this season to hash out 2019 schedules, Berlin — and maybe even Xavier? — will be front of mind as future Middletown opponents.

** In that RHAM-Berlin game, Berlin had the ball on RHAM’s 15-yard-line and facing third-and-5 when RHAM decided to call a timeout. The Redcoats were up 41-28 with 55 seconds. One of Berlin’s assistant coaches turned to his sidelines and said something to the effect of, “What are they doing?” When play resumed, Berlin botched the snap, RHAM picked up the fumble and returned it 79 yards for the score.

The moral of this: A game really isn’t over until it’s over.

** Football teams usually do not have a player’s last name on the backs of their jerseys. The back of each RHAM jersey carries the school’s nickname, “Sachems.” It’s another indication that coach Robert Rubin is trying to build football culture at a school not recognized for its football program.

“We’re not that team anymore” that an opponent can expect to walk over, he said. “We are starting to gain support in our building, where it’s nice to be on the football team.”

** There has been change in the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame’s 2019 class of inductees.

Otis Rankins, who excelled in football, basketball and baseball at Middletown High School in the late 1980s, will be inducted with the newest class in January. Jack Beckley, who played football at Woodrow Wilson High, was elected but cannot attend. His election will be held in abeyance for 2020.

Rankins went on to play football at Division III Nichols College in Dudley, Massachusetts, where he is a member of the school’s athletics hall of fame. In 1993, the year of his graduation, he received the award as Nichols’ outstanding male senior athlete.

If memory serves, at Sage Park in 1986, Rankins batted down a pass near the goal line on the game’s final play to preserve another Blue Dragons win over Berlin.

** Phil Murphy, Class of 1975, was the first Xavier graduate to play in the NFL. He was a lineman on those great Larry McHughcoached teams, went on to a career as a nose guard at South Carolina State, and was taken in the third round by the Los Angeles Rams in the 1980 draft.

“He was big (6-foot-5, 290 pounds), an athlete, great in the shot put and discus in track. I saw him in the 1980 College Senior Bowl, and he dominated all over the field. I knew he’d be drafted in the NFL,” McHugh told the Hartford Courant a few years ago.

Murphy died on Oct. 10 at the young age of 61. His No. 95 Rams jersey hangs in newly christened Tony Jaskot Fitness Room at the school.

Murphy is a member of the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 1995. A year later, he became a member of Xavier’s Hall of Honors, and in 2012 he was inducted into the MidEastern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame.

“We will miss our friend and brother Phil Murphy,” Leroy “Foots” Robinson, Murphy’s teammate at S.C. State, wrote online last week. “A man of high character.”

** Participation numbers in high school football continue to drop across the country. In August, the National Federation of State High School Associations published results of its annual athletics participation survey. The overall number of kids in sports in 2017-18 increased for the 29th consecutive year, to an all-time high of 7,979,986.

While football, with 1.036 million, remains the top participatory sport for boys in high school, the number has fallen each of the last two years. Since football’s peak participation year in 2009-2010, the sport has seen a 7 percent decline while participation in all other sports has increased by 7 percent.

This year alone, there are 21,465 fewer kids playing football nationwide than were playing a year ago, a drop of 2 percent. Whether the decline continues or perhaps slows remains to be seen.

“We are encouraged that the decline in high school football has slowed due, in part, to our efforts in reducing the risk of injury in the sport,” said Karissa Niehoff, who became executive director of the NFHS after working for eight years as the CIAC’s executive director.

“While there may be other reasons that students elect not to play football, we have attempted to assure student-athletes and their parents that thanks to the concussion protocols and rules in place in every state in the country, the sport of football is as safe as it ever has been.”

I think the numbers over the next three to five years will be telling. If they continue to drop, we will have to wonder about football’s long-term place on sports’ landscape. In the last two years, rules meant to reduce the risk of head injury at all levels of the game have taken hold. With more time, it will be interesting to see if the decline in participation slows.

** On this date 30 years ago, No. 2 Stratford knocked off No. 1 Middletown 21-6. A meeting between the top two teams in the polls is a rarity, but the matchup lost its luster when, two days before the game, word came down that the 1988 Blue Dragons had to forfeit two wins for using an ineligible player.

According to reports at the time, school officials self-reported the violation to the CIAC after discovering a senior reserve played minimally in the two games.

Instead of being 5-0 entering the Stratford game, MHS was 3-2, which was a death blow for its playoff aspirations. Its season came down to the game at Stratford, and the Red Devils outplayed Middletown. Afterward, coach John Skubel said, “I’ve never lost three games in one week before.” MHS finished the season 7-3 and missed the playoffs.

** The top seed in the Shoreline Conference girls soccer race is up for grabs between Morgan (10-1-3), Cromwell (10-2-2) and Portland (10-3-2) heading into the final week of the regular season. Morgan got a leg up with Saturday’s 2-1 win over the Panthers.

The top six teams qualify for the Shoreline tournament, with the top two receiving byes. It looks as if East Hampton, North Branford and Old Lyme will round out the top six.

** The Red Sox will have to make do in the World Series without umpire Joe West’s help. Seriously, I have a great deal of respect for the Sox — and I don’t know many Yankees fans like myself who would say this. Boston’s offense demolished the defending champion Astros and the bullpen seems to have found its way. If only Boston’s fan base wasn’t insufferable.

I felt in March that Boston had all of the components to get to — and win — the World Series. Red Sox in five over the Dodgers.

** Amirh Brackett-White is one of two local products on Anna Maria College’s football team. BrackettWhite played at Middletown High. He has eight tackles and an interception in five games. Sophomore Noah Vinci, who played at H-K, has seen time at running back. Anna Maria is a liberal arts college in Paxton, Mass.

** Your UConn Huskies have the worst defense of the 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams in a couple of categories: Last in points allowed per game (51.4), last in total yards allowed per game (651), and last in total yards allowed this season (4,560). Only Bowling Green (382) has allowed more points this season than UConn’s 360.