Sports: Valley Regional/Old Lyme football team wins 49-14
Deep River — Thursday night was how the Valley Regional/Old Lyme football team envisioned their season going.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, they have only one game left. Valley/Old Lyme has been snakebite this season with injuries playing a big role in a five-game losing streak that derailed any hopes of the playoffs or a winning season.
The Warriors can still finish the season without a losing record, too, and it took another step towards that against Gilbert/ Northwestern Regional. They routed the latter 49-14 with the entire second half of the Pequot Football League game being played with running time.
“All year long, we've been asking them and trying to play a complete game,” Valley/Old Lyme head coach Tim King said. “Tonight, we finally put it together, but we're finally healthy.
“We got (quarterback) Jack (Cox) back (from a knee injury). We got Colbe (Andrews) back (from a broken ankle). We've got our linemen back, our walking wounded. It's Week 11 and we've finally got everybody back. We had them back last week (a 35-12 win over Old Saybrook/Westbrook on Oct. 15), but they were still like at 75-percent. Now everybody is pretty close to 100-percent healthy and you can see how we can play with anybody. And the big thing, too, is the young kids are coming along.”
Andrews had two interceptions and returned a kickoff for a 90-yard touchdown and Anthony Rosario scored on three short runs for the Warriors.
Cox completed 7 of 15 passes for 178 yards and a touchdown and ran for another for Valley/Old Lyme while freshman Di'Angelo JeanPierre also had two interceptions for Valley/ Old Lyme.
Rosario ran for a 4-yard touchdown as Valley/Old Lyme scored on its first drive with 6 minutes, 36 seconds left in the first quarter.
The Yellowjackets answered in no time. Chase Sanden got behind the Warriors defense on the Gilbert/Northwestern sideline and took a pass from Anthony Carfiro for a 71-yard touchdown to tie the game at 7 with 5:37 remaining in the first quarter.
Andrews came right back with a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and a 14-7 Valley/Old Lyme lead.
“It's Week 11 and we've finally got everybody back. We had them back last week, but they were still like at 75-percent. Now everybody is pretty close to 100-percent healthy and you can see how we can play with anybody.” TIM KING, VALLEY/OLD LYME COACH
It was on Gilbert/Northwestern's next possession that the Warriors got jumpstarted. They stopped the latter for no gain on fourth-and-2 from its own 38-yard line.
Valley/Old Lyme didn't convert that stop into points, but it sure got a boost from it.
“It got us going because we were all there making the tackle,” Andrews said. “When I was down in that pile with a bunch of other guys, it was like the whole team was there. And it just felt like we're a team and we're going to come out with a win right there.”
Jean-Pierre intercepted Carfiro at the Gilbert/Northwestern 37 late in the first quarter.
A 23-yard pass from Cox to Andrews gave the Warriors the ball at the Yellowjackets' 5. Cox ran for a touchdown on the next play as Valley/Old Lyme went ahead, 21-7, 31 seconds into the second quarter.
The Warriors' Carter Tiezzi recovered a fumble at the Gilbert/ Northwestern 30 on the their first play of its next drive.
Cox threw a 20-yard touchdown to Rankin on the next play to push Valley/Old Lyme's lead to 28-7 with 11:07 left in the half.
Andrews intercepted a pass on the Yellowjackets' next possession and returned it to their 28. It set up Rosario's 1-yard touchdown run as the Warriors increased their lead to 35-7 with 8:05 remaining in the first half.
Valley/Old Lyme's Ian MacKenzie sacked Carfiro for an 8-yard loss on fourth-and-6 at the Gilbert/Northwestern 48.
Rankin high-pointed a ball perfectly on third-and-10 for a 39-yard gain down to the Yellowjackets' 1-yard line.
Justin Baldato ran for a touchdown on the next play as the Warriors went ahead, 42-7, with 2:17 remaining in the half.
“Unfortunately, we're just blending and gelling now with five days left in the regular season,” King said. n.griffen@theday.com
Los Angeles — The Celtics got most everything they wanted Wednesday night against the Clippers.
They dug in on defense and held a team averaging 112.8 points to just 97 in regulation.
They got into Kawhi Leonard's airspace and held the star to 17 points on 7-for-20 shooting. They had a 10-point lead on the road in the fourth quarter against a club that could well be your 2020 NBA champion. But they failed to close the deal. The Celtics lost for just the third time in 14 games, slip-sliding away in overtime, 107-104. They are now 2-2 on the trip with Friday's duel in Denver remaining.
"They made a lot of good plays, a few more than us," said Brad Stevens after seeing an early season signature win dribble through the Celts' legs. "It was a really good game, a high-level game. Both teams really competed. Even when shots weren't going down for both sides and we were both turning it over a little bit at the end of the first half, it was still very competitive. The defense on both ends was really outstanding.
"I mean, we wanted to win. I'm disappointed we didn't win, but hats off to them. They made enough plays. There's going to be a lot of good clips from this. There'll be some mistakes that we made, but I thought our guys really fought. I thought they really competed at a high level." Until the last second. On the final sequence of overtime, Kemba Walker got to the rebound of a Jayson Tatum missed trey and was fouled with 1.6 seconds left. Walker received the inbounds pass in the left corner, but the 6-foot guard's twisting deep trey was knocked off course by the 6-foot-7 Leonard.
"It wasn't a lot of space," said Walker after going 4 for 17 from the floor. "You know, trying to get a shot off. But, you know, we all know Kawhi and his hands and his defensive ability. He got his hands on the basketball."
Said Stevens, "(Walker) just popped to the corner, which is a really good read. He usually cuts up the seam there, and he lost a normal person on that cut. He got enough separation to get it off against most of the league. The problem is that guy's not normal and he's not most of the league. He made a great play to block it. But there were a lot of opportunities that we had that we missed. So that was just a heck of a play on their part. It's hard to get a clean look against their length and switching at that time of the game."
The Celtics did get a number of clean looks throughout the night, but they muddied many of them. They made just one of 18 3-pointers in the opening half, clanging their first 16 before Brad Wanamaker found the strings with 3:27 left in the second quarter.
Then the C's turned around and made seven of 10 from beyond the arc in the third period, with Tatum nailing four or five from distance on the way to his second 14-point third quarter in as many games. (He finished with 30.)
Walker hit a pair of treys and Jaylen Brown added another as the Celts stretched their lead out to 8676 with a little more than six minutes left in regulation. But Lou Williams completed a 13-point period, and Patrick Beverley got free for two 3-pointers, and when the Celtics went more than two minutes without a point, missing five shots and turning the ball over once, the Clippers came all the way back to lead 97-94 with 20.7 seconds left.
Tatum then took the ball up high and went right, stepping on Paul George's foot as the latter went down. He then rose and tied the game with a trey. Leonard got a decent chance at the other end, but his 3 at the buzzer rimmed out.
Beverley, averaging just 7.2 points a game coming in, hit two more treys in OT to give the Clippers a 107-102 lead in the final minute.