New London beats East Lyme in high school football opener
Young stars are ready for prime time in easy victory over Vikings
New London— Perhaps no one represented the "new" New London High School football team Friday night better than freshman Jacob Commander.
Last year at this time, Commander was a seventh-grader, skipping over the eighth grade to arrive at the high school this season. Commander played in last year's 7th Grade Eastbay Youth All-American Bowl in Naples, Fla., earning MVP honors at linebacker.
On Friday, Commander started for New London at running back. And kicker. And punter. All 5- foot- 6 of him.
And a revamped New London team, minus top receivers Jelani Lucas and Troy Gray and a pair of Division I linemen in Hunter Roman (Yale) and Bryan Cespedes (UConn), all of whom were lost to graduation, opened the season with a 31-0 victory over East Lyme in the Eastern Connecticut Conference Large Division, nevertheless.
"People told me ( ahead of time) that freshmen don't start really," Commander said. "I still get treated like a freshman, no different. I make mistakes and I learn from them."
Commander finished with 19 carries for 96 yards and two touchdowns, capping the Whalers' scoring
with a 19-yard scoring run in the fourth quarter, and firstyear quarterback, junior Melquan Gomez, was 12-for-23 for 221 yards and two touchdowns.
Major Roman, a 6-foot-5 sophomore who is already drawing Division I interest and who had the highest grade point average on last year's team, according to coach Duane Maranda — higher than his Yale-bound brother — had eight catches for 124 yards and a touchdown and also returned a 34-yard interception for a touchdown in the first quarter.
"It's a big reason we did spring (practice)," Maranda said of finding a way to put together all the fresh pieces, rebooting after last year's trip to the state playoffs. "We went to Yale camp in June and we went to Middlesex County 4H camp ... it was great to find out what each other's 'why' was. We found out we have a lot more 'we's' than 'I's'."
Still, as of last week's scrimmages against Southington (the defending Class LL-Large champion) and Waterford, things weren't exactly flawless, let's just say.
"We had some blocking things, we forgot plays, stuff like that, but we worked out butts off to get better," Roman said.
"Two weeks ago we had more bad practices than good practices," Maranda said. "We stressed that. Good teams have to have more good practices than bad practices. To their credit, they put together four good practices this week. The defense played great and the offense moved the ball."
The finished product on opening day showed not only improvement, but a distinct crispness.
The Whalers scored on their first possession on a 24-yard pass from Gomez to Elijah Parker and Roman grabbed an interception from East Lyme sophomore quarterback Dylan Hatajik and returned it for a 12-0 lead.
Commander found a groove on New London's next series, running six times for 53 yards, including a 32-yard gain and a 12-yard touchdown, making it 18-0 and the Whalers led 25-0 at halftime on a 14-yard fade to the right from Gomez to Roman.
New London fumbled on its only drive of the third quarter, as East Lyme put together a long drive from its own 5 to the Whalers' 27, but wound up going backwards from there on a series of penalties and personal fouls.
"We played good for a lot of parts of the game and then we shot ourselves in the foot," East Lyme coach Rudy Bagos said. "We move the ball and then the next thing you know it's third-and-30. ... We're going to have some growing pains. We started two freshmen tonight."
Josh Bowman finished with seven carries for 52 yards for East Lyme, including a 39-yarder in the third quarter.
When New London finally got the ball back, however, Gomez quickly went back to Roman for an 18-yard gain over the middle and the Whalers took the ball 73 yards in 12 plays, resulting in Commander's final touchdown.
"It was great," Commander said. "It started off good and they kept giving me the ball." v.fulkerson@theday.com Twitter: @vickieattheday