Unforgettable hit
A slide and unfortunate injury led Prep over Greenwich
FAIRFIELD — The play that no one on Greenwich will forget is the one that sadly Jack Wilson could not recall after his season ended Tuesday night.
There was 8:24 left in the third quarter when the Cardinals quarterback broke free up the middle on a third-down keeper, picked up the first down and began his slide. He began to give himself up, as the football parlance goes.
“I don’t really remember what happened on the play,” Wilson said when it was over, after Greenwich had fallen to Fairfield Prep, 21-14, in the CIAC Class LL quarterfinals at Rafferty Stadium.
What happened next was Prep defensive back Joe D’Elia raced in and hit Wilson hard, very hard, and left Wilson prone on his back for minutes.
Football can be a frightening game.
“I didn’t expect No. 14 to slide,” D’Elia said. “I was just trying to make a tackle. By no means was that supposed to happen.”
It did happen and when the 15-yard penalty was added on to Wilson’s 11yard run, Greenwich had a 14-7 lead, the ball on the Jesuits’ 26-yard-line and a golden opportunity to break open a two-touchdown second-half lead.
“You put that one away, it’s a different game,” Wilson said.
Wilson didn’t have much else to say, beyond “it was a tough way to lose.” He eventually got up from the hit, but he would not return to the game. Afterward, his eyes were watered. His hair was disheveled. He was bundled in his warmup. Jack Wilson was concussed.
Thanks to the new scoring system that rewards teams for playing more challenging schedules, Greenwich and Daniel Hand qualified for the final spots in Class LL and Class L. And while both were playing the No. 1 seeds, they figured to play two of the tightest games among the 16 on Tuesday night. Sure enough, they did. St. Joseph pulled out a 21-20 overtime victory over Hand. And one could say with fear of much rebuttal, the play that left Jack Wilson KO’d made all the difference in the Prep-Greenwich game. There was no single bigger play around Connecticut on Tuesday night.
Holden Brown entered the game at quarterback for Greenwich. Snap. Fumble. Prep sophomore Javere Cannonier fell on the ball with 8:03 left in the third quarter. Greenwich stood tough, forced a punt and, yes, déjà vu.
Snap. Another fumble. Cannonier recovered again near midfield.
“Our offense needed a little push,” Cannonier said. “This is the biggest game of my life. I had to do it for the team.”
This time Prep made the Cardinals pay. Quarterback Connor Smith scrambled 23 yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 14-14 with four minutes left in the third quarter.
It was a nightmare for Greenwich.
A 7-minute nightmare that was about to get worse.
Thomas Foster fumbled, Prep’s Tymaine Smith recovered and before you knew it Ryan O’Connell scored from 1 yard out to give the Jesuits a 21-14 lead with 1:15 left in the third quarter. A lead that stood. Without Wilson, Greenwich was helpless.
“Three fumbles on four plays,” Greenwich coach Anthony Morello said. “It happened immediately after our quarterback got knocked out of the game. Hopefully, he’s alright. He seems to be walking.” Concussed?
“Oh yeah, he was out,” Morello said. “He was out. There was no question we had to make a change. Look, it doesn’t take away from the season we had. I’m super proud of the seniors. I think everybody that watched this game knew what was happening.
“Everyone that watched this game saw who the better football team was when we were all at full strength. Unfortunately, when you lose a player such as Jack Wilson, momentum can shift very quickly. This one is going to sting for a while, because it was right within our grasp. Fairfield Prep is a great football team. They still had to score points, still had to come back and win the football game.”
In the moments immediately after the game, Morello hadn’t seen a replay of the hit.
“(Wilson) was going to slide and the violence of the hit, how there wasn’t an ejection there is a little concerning,” Morello said. “I was shocked to hear there wasn’t a targeting call, because he wasn’t diving for a play, wasn’t upright. He was giving himself up. In my opinion, it was a targeting call that that wasn’t called.
“(D’Elia) is one of their best players, if not their best. Obviously, it did have an effect on the rest of the game aside from that play. We got 15 yards out of it, but lost one our best players for the rest of the game and they were no worse for wear.”
Several minutes after the game, after much of the field had cleared, Fairfield Prep coach Keith Hellstern said he had a chance to see the video.
“It’s a clean play,” Hellstern said. “It’s a late slide with a kid (D’Elia) who is trying to fit it up. No one ever wants to see anybody hurt, but it was not a malicious strike. I think what ended up happening was, and this is what the referee told me: When (Wilson) slid in, it looked like targeting but only because they met each other as they were going down. What hurt him was when his head went into the turf. That’s what the doctor said as well.”
Thanks to video by Pete Paguaga of GameTimeCT, I got a look at the play frame by frame. D’Elia began to make his tackle as Wilson had begun his slide. Wilson’s butt was hitting the ground when D’Elia made contact. His shoulder pads may have grazed Wilson’s helmet. I couldn’t tell from the video angle. It definitely was not a direct helmet-to-helmet shot.
What appeared to cause the damage was, as Hellstern said, was the hit seemed to drive Wilson’s head off the ground. Wilson’s body rolled over before coming to a rest, with his forearms stiff and pointing to the sky. Scary.
“It’s a shame that it happened, but trust me when I tell you the last thing we would ever condone or teach is to lead with the helmet,” Hellstern said. “You never want to see it happen.
“Losing your quarterback does (have an impact on the game), but we were still battling. I’m not going to take anything away from Greenwich and I’m not going to take anything away from our kids. You still have to play game. We made some big plays. We knew this was going to be a tough game.”
It was one of those giveand-take years for Greenwich. A big win, a big loss, a big win. Foster scored in overtime to beat Staples on Thanksgiving and get the Cardinals into the playoffs. He broke the first play from scrimmage Tuesday night for an 86-yard touchdown run, Greenwich led 14-7 at halftime. It all went wrong after Wilson went down. Fumbles, sacks, it was sad to watch.
The Cardinals had one last gasp after a pass interference call and a subsequent unsportsmanlike gave them 30 yards. A couple of Foster runs brought them inside the Prep 25. But wouldn’t you know it?
On fourth down, Brown’s pass intended for Logan Galletta was a tad off at the 10 and, sure enough, D’Elia broke it up.
“No. 7, great receiver, ran a slant up the middle,” D’Elia said. “I just wanted to cut it off and that’s exactly what I did. I was just trying to rip down on his arms.”
Brown, like Wilson, is a junior and there was a good competition in preseason for the starting berth before Wilson won the job. But Aug. 30 is not Nov. 30 and Brown, who was 5 for 16 and one TD pass before this game, suddenly found himself on a very cold night in a very bad spot.
“Holden has gotten work this year,” Morello said. “I have a lot of confidence in him and what he can do. “Unfortunately the stage was a little too big for him.”
“I guess it was a pretty difficult spot,” Brown said. “A lot of nerves going. I gave it my all, but clearly it wasn’t enough. My hands were cold, I wasn’t warm, I could give you a million reasons. But this one was on me.”
And give the kid all the credit for his uprightness. He repeated it to make sure I heard correctly.
“This one was on me,” Holden Brown said.