Even in defeat, this was Petroccio’s night

WESTPORT — The sun was 15 minutes from setting on this early Friday night, the last vestiges of natural light hanging to the west when fans were asked to direct their attention to the videoboard at Staples High.

Trumbull coach Marce Petroccio already had been invited out to the 50-yard line by Marty Lisevick, Staples athletic director and a close friend.

The video tribute for one of Connecticut’s great football coaches started out a little rocky. There was no sound.

“This is great!” a young guy yelled from the Trumbull side.

Hey, we haven’t had football in more than 650 days. There are kinks to work out.

The audio kicked in, the music, Marce firing his team up in the Staples locker room, game highlight after game

highlight. The buzz of appreciation could be heard building from both sides.

“So many big games,” Trumbull assistant Jack McFarland said. “So many memories. For 25 years, coach P built this program, he built this field. He built everything.”

McFarland would know. An administrator and state champion baseball coach at Staples, he coached 23 of those 25 years and stayed with Petroccio’s staff when he went to Trumbull in 2018.

Over that quarter of a century, Petroccio took Staples to eight state championship games and won three of them in 2002, 2004 and 2005. He guided Staples to seven FCIAC titles games and won five of those. He won 210 games.

And now he was back for the first time since his departure following the 2017 season. He said he wasn’t nervous. He swore he wasn’t emotional.

“I’ll tell you what it was,” Petroccio said, “it was a lot of memories, great people here. I just couldn’t let myself get emotional. I knew I couldn’t get too deep into the hoopla of this. I had my coaching hat on. I had to worry about the task at hand. It had to be about my kids, not about me. However, it was just such a classy thing by Staples High School and I really appreciate it.”

Petroccio would leave this night with a plaque to honor his achievements. He also would leave without a W. Charlie Howard’s 73-yard pick six with 17 seconds remaining gave Staples a dramatic 27-20 victory. One moment Trumbull was driving and the next a tipped pass and Howard is in the end zone.

“It was a crazy game,” Petroccio said. “In the end they made one more play than we did.”

The FCIAC, of course, has stood as the best high football league in the state and with that comes demands in certain corners of Fairfield County. Petroccio made the mistake of going 11-9 in his last two seasons at Staples and the story is a few folks in Westport believed they knew more about coaching than one of the great high school football coaches in state history.

There was an opening at Trumbull when Bob Maffei resigned after 20 years. Petroccio played at Trumbull. He learned at the foot of Jerry McDougall. Along the way, he had offers from colleges and high schools. Afterall, he was FCIAC coach of the year six times, CHSCA Coach of the Year in 2007 and USA Today’s Coach of the Year in 2013. He played for Kevin Gilbride at Southern Connecticut. He assisted Paul Pasqualoni at Western Connecticut. He assisted Steve Addazio at Cheshire before assisting McDougall and taking the head position at Staples. His resume reads like a who’s who of state coaching.

Petroccio always said no to those other job offers after 1993. This time he thought long and hard and decided Trumbull was the one place he’d leave for after so many years. He began the rebuilding job, going 8-12 in two seasons before COVID hit.

And now here Petroccio was, with a large senior class, a huge offensive line and about to get his doors blown off in the first half. Football fans were warned not to read too much into the first GameTimeCT Top 10 poll. With a year lost to COVID, it was impossible to know where teams stood. Still, Trumbull had the 11th most votes and early on didn’t look deserving of any of them.

The Eagles fumbled away a pooch opening kickoff. A sure pick-six was dropped. They fell behind 14-0 by halftime. It could have been worse. Staples missed a short field goal and had a touchdown called back on a penalty. It was 20-6 late in the third quarter and matters looked desperate.

“I think we were shellshocked,” Petroccio said. “A myriad of mistakes, tipped balls, blown coverages, missed tackles, missed assignments. It took awhile for them to get their sea legs. By that time they already scored 20 points. We started having kids go down. The last touchdown before the interception, we had two young kids out there at corner. That hurt us.”

Make no mistake. Staples quarterback Ryan Thompson is a player. He is shifty. He has a strong, accurate arm. If you saw him listed among the GameTimeCT 25 Players To Watch you may have wondered. Don’t. He played wide receiver as a sophomore before shifting to QB in the private league and threw for nearly 300 yards on this night. Thompson also has a slew of talented receivers and when Nick Armentano and Miles Scarfo both left injured on the same play in the third quarter, Thompson was still throwing strikes.

“The kid Thompson is a legitimate player, without a doubt,” Petroccio said. “They have great receivers. They have some great athletes. We got some pressure on (Thompson), but he escaped it and that’s when everything kind of falls apart.”

Only Trumbull didn’t fall apart. Hunter Agoste found Corbin Smith for a 29-yard touchdown pass. Agoste found Owen Solano for a 10-yard touchdown and ran a bootleg for a two-point conversion.

Score 20-20 with 8:27 left. “Listen, we have a tremendous amount of grit,” Petroccio said. “We never quit. In the past, we would have been blown out here. We battled back. I’m upset about not winning, but that’s OK. We’ve got nine games left. We’ll be fine.”

Remember that setting sun and the video tribute? This one went on for more than three hours. Guys cramping. Guys make huge plays. Trumbull tight Ben Carley, 255 pounds of desire, made huge catches down the stretch before his leg finally gave out of him in the closing minute deep into the night.

“It was an unbelievable game,” McFarland said. “There were mistakes, but both teams fought hard. It was a great night for high school football.”

In June, after Paul Lane’s death, the Westport Representative Town Meeting voted to name Staples’ field after the man who coached football, golf and track over three decades and was a mentor to so many. It was a fitting tribute. One day the RTM should seriously consider calling it Lane-Petroccio Field.

“Quite honestly just playing football was awesome enough tonight,” Petroccio said. “After like 654-655 days, it was so great to coach again. “It just wasn’t our night.” Even if he didn’t want the attention it still was Marce Petroccio’s night.