Redskins win middle school championship
Before the 109th and final player was selected in the 2018 Norwalk Middle School flag football draft, the emotions and intrigue were already heading for a collision. A sister vs. a brother, 6-foot-2 vs. 4foot-2, best friends vs. best friends — it was all there and more, and to top it off, the whole league is managed by a Roman. What some envisioned was a recipe for historical discord was a recipe for historical delight.
Of course, any football league features a wild card, so it was fitting that Mother Nature reigned queen of the season. Relentless rain caused havoc on the grass fields of Fox Run School, forcing games to be played on the turf at the Judge Callahan Athletic Complex. Then, Mother Nature would have none of the double-elimination plans so she threw a snow fit that compressed the playoff schedule, leaving only four of 10 teams in her wake.
The semifinals and finals moved across town to be played under the lights at McMahon High School on Nov. 18. The first pairing featured the second-seeded, no-huddle Patriots team vs. a very well-rounded fourth-seeded Redskins team. His lacrosse stick resting at home, Patriots quarterback James Corry barely ran out of Baker Mayfield juice as his lastminute touchdown pass was waived off after further review.
The ever-positive assistant head coach Matt Corry summed it up well: “Roger and I give these guys some plays to run at the beginning of the season, sprinkle in some advice, but they choose and run all the plays every game. Big congrats to that Redskins team, they’re going to very tough to beat.”
As the playoffs’ No. 1 seed, the Raiders would take on the Steelers, who were the only team to beat them during the season. “What a mess we were,” said assistant head coach Kevin Kane. “I came up way short with TJ out of town, couldn’t rally the troops, so off came all four wheels of our players’ cart, so to say. This first-round playoff game is gonna be really interesting.”
The Steelers suffered a huge setback in the opening minutes when star all-arounder Braden Darling jammed joints on three fingers, adding insult to injury as he had just come off an injury to his other hand suffered in basketball. What depth the Steelers lacked, the Raiders then put it to work in a big rebound win over the Steelers.
“Rich and I knew we’d have our hands full and couldn’t rest on our win against the Raiders in the regular season, so it was a tough way to end the season as we’d just come off probably our best game of the season in the first round of the playoffs,” said head coach Rick Darling.
“Losing Braden early in this game didn’t help, but give credit to the Raiders as they were the better, faster team and pulled flags more effectively than we did. However, we had a really nice season overall; a number of kids made positive contributions over the course of the season. We had one eighth-grader who I would like to point out, as this was his last year in flag football, and that’s Brian Weiss, who had a great year on offense and defense.”
The championship featured the Raiders vs. Redskins, which summed up many unique storylines of the league. Two best friends, Jack Devine and James Kane, would battle for the championship as starting quarterbacks for their teams. Adding intrigue and without the Raiders’ go-to pass-rusher, Justin Thomas, Kane was also tasked defensively with limiting the type of damage Devine dished out the entire season. In addition, while still in her Packers jersey from an earlier consolation game, Jayson Przybisiki’s sister Samantha would cheer on her Raiders-clad brother from the sidelines.
The Redskins jumped off to a quick start, leaving the Raiders frustrated and in a 21-0 hole at halftime. The Raiders’ depth shined under the lights in the second half as the sixth-grade foursome of AJ Trimboli, Joey Hagerty, Joey Homicki and Emmett Kane made key catches and plays on both sides of the ball. Kodi Socci did an amazing job defending all 6 feet, 2 inches of Raider Andrew Burke, yet Burke managed to haul in passes at key moments.
Will Socci tag-teamed the effort with key defensive plays as well as two touchdowns and two extra points while Daniel Chironna hauled in eight passes, as both proved to be keys on the road to the championship.
However, a clock battle and last-minute drive by the Raiders was not quite enough as the Redskins took the middle school flag football championship 28-27.
“I’m good friends with (Raiders coach) TJ, he takes a methodical approach, but our boys can really get after it on both sides of the ball,” said Redskins coach Kraig Socci. “Jack connected with everyone for what felt like a total of 200 yards. What a duel those two QBs had.”
“I along with the coaches demand sportsmanship and above all to have fun in this league,” said Flag Football League president Andres Roman. “This season highlighted 10 teams of kids who might be buddies on the baseball diamond or classmates in the hall yet could also compete very hard against each other every week.
“The backdrop to all this league is many years of Norwalk family traditions still going strong: Lametta, Trimboli, Singewald, Callahan, a pair of Socci brothers coached the Redskins, I played for McMahon. Heck, even the Peters family is third generation, the first of which played for the Norwalk Ramblers that was coached by Judge Callahan. It’s awesome. No league is this well-rounded; some of these eighth-graders will go on to play football or other sports while others will grab their saxophone or prepare for theater so this might be their last game. Some of the eighth-graders even helped referee the younger league games. I let the participation, volunteer coaches and help from Parks and Rec tell the story — this middle school league had 76 participants last year and we had 109 this year.”
While this season might be over, interested parties can check out http://norwalkjrfootball.org/ or contact Andres Roman at roman.andres01@gmail.com to learn more.