Breaking down the CIAC weekend action

It was a Connecticut High School Football Alliance Week 3, with 23 crossover games between the SCC, FCIAC, CCC, SWC and ECC. The SCC played in the most games (17), followed by the FCIAC (10), CCC (9), SWC (7) and ECC (3).

It was a pretty even night, as far as the league vs. league results. The SCC went 8-9, the FCIAC 5-5, the CCC 5-5 and ECC 1-2.

The SWC had the best winning percentage of the night, going 5-3 — all five wins came against the SCC, including Stratford’s 34-27 victory over Law, which snapped a 14-game losing streak.

Fourteen of the 24 games were decided by more than 14 points; six were decided by 7 or less points and three were decided by a field goal or less. The average margin of victory was 17.8 points.

The largest margin was 46, courtesy of ECC’s Killingly defeating CCC’s Lewis Mills 54-8, followed by SWC’s New Milford beating SCC’s Harding by 41 and SWC’s Masuk beating SCC’s

Hillhouse by 39.

The lowest margin of victory was 1 in two games: East Catholic’s 27-26 overtime victory over Montville and New Fairfield’s 14-13 victory over Sheehan.

But don’t put away your league pennants just yet. Week 4 will feature another round of 26 Alliance games.

Some of the more intriguing ones include: Wilton at Notre Dame-West Haven, Hand at Masuk, Hillhouse at Bunnell, Darien at NFA, Shelton at Trumbull and Weston at Sheehan on Friday, and three Saturday games: Fairfield Prep at Greenwich, Cheshire at Norwalk and St. Joseph at Xavier.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Much of the state was fixed on No. 1 Darien’s 27-14 victory over Newtown and, while that game lived up to its advanced billing, here were a few others that caused a few jaws to drop across the state:

Shelton 35, Greenwich 14 — Shelton’s offense sputtered vs. North Haven and then Amity, but the defense

Pete Paguaga / Hearst Connecticut Media Ridgefield's Jude Vucci looks to find a hole against Xavier during Friday’s game at Maiolo Field in Ridgefield.