Shake-ups in top 10 as season gets wackier
There are few constants in life. The sun will rise and set. Twinkies will never erode until said sun burns out. And the deeper it gets into the state high school football season, the wackier it gets.
Half of the Top 10 teams in the Hartford Courant state coaches poll moved up or down after Week 8 thanks to the Southern Connecticut Conference Tier 1 trio of North Haven, Shelton and West Haven. More on that threesome in a moment.
Greenwich (7-0) tightened its grip on No. 1 as it gained the firstplace vote previously held by Cheshire and now holds all 13.
Cheshire (7-0) remains second and is one of four SCC Tier 1 teams ranked in the Top 10. It finishes the regular season with its most difficult stretch of games — at North Haven (5-2, Friday, 7 p.m.), vs. West Haven (6-1, Nov. 10) and at Southington (5-2) on Thanksgiving. Eep.
Maloney (6-1) holds at No. 3 and plays at Southington on Friday night at 7 in one of this week’s marquee games. The Spartans’ only loss was to Greenwich, 30-28, after the Cardinals kicked a game-ending 42-yard field goal (Sept. 22).
Things go catawampus from there, again, thanks to North Haven (5-2), Shelton (5-2) and West Haven (6-1).
Shelton, which was No. 12 last week, beat then-no. 4 North Haven last Friday, 14-7.
That same night, West Haven, ranked ninth last week, traveled to then-unbeaten and No. 5 Newtown and won, 41-31.
Complicating matters is that the SCC trio have all exchanged wins.
West Haven won at Shelton, 31-21, on Sept. 29.
North Haven beat West Haven on the road, 21-13, on Oct. 19. And then the Gaels took down North Haven the following week.
Call it “circle of strife.”
Finally, Shelton and West Haven are also the only programs that have beaten two Top 10 teams. The Westies opened the season with a 33-23 road win at Staples (Sept. 8).
That same night, the Gaels beat New Canaan, 26-23. And while they’ve lost twice, both were to Top 10 teams. Their other loss was in overtime to Cheshire, 21-14, on Sept. 14.
How, then, does one vote those three teams? For starters, West Haven is now tied with Staples (6-1) for fourth.
New Canaan (6-1) holds at sixth. Oddly enough, it swapped spots with Staples last week and pushed the latter down to seventh.
Bloomfield (7-0) rose one spot to seventh followed by Shelton and North Haven. The Nighthawks’ other loss was due to them forfeiting to Darien on the day of the game (Sept. 8) after alleged misconduct by student-athletes.
Ansonia (7-0) remains No. 10 and Newtown (6-1) dropped out.
Outside the Top 10, Naugatuck (7-0) remains on the outside looking in as its No. 11 for the third straight week. It’s one of four unbeaten teams not ranked in the Top 10. The others are Notre Dame of Fairfield, Oxford and Northwest United, a co-op based out of Nonnewaug that also includes players from Litchfield, Shepaug Valley, Wamogo and Wolcott Tech. All three programs are also 7-0.
Notre Dame did earn itself extra attention after beating Masuk last Friday, 34-23, for the first time since 2005. It earned 52 more points this week and moved up four spots to No. 15.
Manchester (5-1) earned itself its first vote of the season after stunning Berlin last Friday, 27-21. It plays at No. 12 Windsor (6-1) on Friday night at 7.
The other top games of Week 9 are all on Friday night at 6:30 — Bunnell (5-2) at Notre Dame-ffld.; Granby/canton (6-1) at Cromwell/ Portland (5-1); Griswold/ Wheeler (6-1) at Stonington (6-1); and Rockville (5-1) at North Branford (4-2).