The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Reunion helps lift Guilford in season-opening victory
The head football coaching job had opened up at Guilford after the 2018 season, and North Branford’s offensive coordinator was curious about the situation. Fortunately for that offensive coordinator, Anthony Salvati, he had a good source on the Indians.
“When Coach (Anthony) Avallone stepped down, I shot a message to Chuck, whether he thought I should apply,” Salvati said.
Somewhat unusually, Chuck wasn’t a former colleague, teacher, administrator. It was his former running back.
The reunion of senior Charles Walcott and Salvati paid quick dividends in the season opener Friday night, when Walcott’s two fourthquarter touchdowns erased a 12-point deficit and got the Indians a 20-19 win over Branford.
“I’m happy and grateful he is my coach again,” Walcott said. “He basically started my career as a football player in high school. He always puts the best men on the field. I guess he saw something in me.”
Walcott played for Salvati at North Branford for two years before moving to Guilford before the 2018 season. He’s a captain this year.
“I saw the talent right from the start,” Salvati said. “We put him at slot receiver, running back, even used him as a Wildcat quarterback.”
Salvati and the Thunderbirds missed him last year, when he helped the Indians go 6-4. Then, after 15 years of coaching at North Branford, Salvati followed him.
“He helped get that little trust factor from the rest of the team,” Salvati said.
“The kids bought in because he is such a leader.”
Branford came into Friday’s game as the SCC Tier III team with a lot of buzz, but Guilford came back to open the season with a win. Their heart stood out, Walcott said.
“It’s a good win,” Walcott said, “but it’s on to the next (Friday vs. Hartford Public). That’s in the past.”
TWO AND TWO BETTER
The number was in Noe Ruelas’ mind, because he’d had to look it up before.
“Last season I kicked a 52-yard field goal,” the Hall senior said, “and people were wondering if it was a record. I had to look it up.”
He found out the state record for the longest field goal in a high school game was 54 yards, a number that had been achieved three times since 1987.
Ruelas was confident Friday night when he lined up for a 56-yarder against Simsbury, breaking a record held by Watertown’s Rico Brogna (the future Major League Baseball player) and Fermi’s Tyler Timion, who both kicked 54-yard field goals in 1987, and Pomperaug’s Matt Paola, who matched them in 2011.
Caden Lill’s field goal tied the game for Simsbury, and the Trojans beat Hall 9-3 in overtime at Hall’s Chalmers Stadium.
Ruelas said he grew up playing soccer but began kicking in his freshman year of football in Colorado. He moved to Connecticut for his sophomore year.
“I started going to camps last year, improved on (my technique),” he said. Now he’s talking with colleges around the northeast.
Kohl’s Kicking Camp introduced him to the “Kick-It” program, raising money for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer.
His page on the foundation website is accepting pledges for each point he scores or donations for the foundation. Glastonbury’s Ryan Smith is doing the same.
STREAK STOPPED
Led by a smothering defensive effort, and some clutch plays by some new postrgraduates from places as far away as Chicago, California and even Canada, St. Thomas More Prep of Oakdale ended Choate’s 48-game win streak with a 34-9 victory at JJ Maher Field in Wallingford on Saturday.
“It’s great,” said St. Thomas More Prep coach Jason Manson, a former Bloomfield standout who took over for Jeff Moore after a four-year coaching stint at Capital Prep/ Achievement first. “It feels awesome it’s great and it’s exactly what we wanted to do. Now, we’ve got the keep them humble and try to get the next win.”
It was Choate’s first loss since a 35-21 setback to Loomis Chaffee, also at home, on Nov. 2, 2013 and the first loss as head coach for L.J. Spinnato, who took over at the start of the 2014 season.
He took the unprecedented experience in stride, especially since Choate graduated a lion’s share of players from last year’s NEPSAC A championship team.
“This was the best thing that could have happened to us,” said Spinnato, now 47-1 as head coach. “In the past I think we might have gotten away with too much because of our talent.
“We didn’t fine-tune little things that we could have and that’s on me. I’ve got to get better and the kids have got to get better. You can’t just expect just because you play at Choate that you’re going to win.”
REFUGE
Tolland has been no stranger to tragedy of late. For coach Scott Cady, the football field is at least a small respite from it.
Cady himself is fighting peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the abdomen.
“There’s no place I’d rather be, except for the ‘B’ on the field. I’d rather see a ‘T’,” Cady joked after Thursday’s 14-8 seasonopening loss at Sage Park in Berlin, and who wouldn’t rather be home?
“You kidding me? This is my happy place, yeah, and everybody knows that. I don’t think about it. I just don’t think about it. I’m doing good. I feel good. Some days I’m weaker than others. I’ve got a great staff, I’ve got great kids, good parents, it’s great. Good town.”
It’s a town that has lost alumni, a teacher and another coach way too young this year. Track and field coach Corey Pusey died a week ago at age 40. Cady said several football players were throwers for Pusey.
“He and I worked very closely together,” Cady said. “The girls and boys throwing teams were in with the football team this winter, and it really added a great dynamic.
“He was a special man, and that one hurts. He really was everything that people are saying about him. He was a monster in the hallways, a great personality. The kids, he told it to them straight. He gave them both: the love and the reality of life. Coaches like that, they’re important. We’re going to miss him an awful lot.”
Cady said he’s proud of his team’s effort through it all. When he was diagnosed in May, he said, the players kept up their work ethic on their own.
And they were in Thursday’s game the whole way.
“I couldn’t be more proud of them as human beings, as young men,” Cady said. “They’re great kids. We just didn’t play good today. That’s all it is. I love them.”
The Eagles’ Ryan Carlson set up a gofundme page for Cady in May. As of Monday,
it was about $1,500 shy of a $15,000 goal.
PLEDGE BREAK
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