October 28, 2006Trinity Bounces Back With Rout of Ludlowefrom The Stamford Advocate FAIRFIELD -- Trinity Catholic's football team was anxious to bounce back, and the Crusaders did just that quite impressively last night at Fairfield Ludlowe High School. With the Crusaders having dropped to 3-3 with a 40-20 defeat six days earlier to an undefeated Bunnell team that is ranked 13th in the state coaches poll, they wanted to put that behind them and begin a positive homestretch to this season. They certainly accomplished Step 1 last night. The Crusaders stunned Ludlowe by vaulting out to a 22-0 lead in the game's first 13 minutes and cruised to a 43-13 victory. A.J. Nelson ran for a touchdown and caught one of the two touchdown passes thrown by quarterback Anas Koummal. Koummal was a nifty 4-for-4 in passing for 117 yards, including TD passes of 18 to Nelson and 60 to Tyler Collins. He did all of that in the first half. Nelson, Koummal and virtually all of Trinity Catholic's starters sat out the last two quarters after staking the Crusaders to a 36-0 halftime lead. Nelson rushed for 50 yards on six carries, capped by his 27-yard TD run at the end of the first half. "We had our minds set on making the state playoffs," Nelson said. "Now we realize we have to play one game at a time. Even though we were 3-3, we can still finish strong and go 7-3. Nothing would be better than that." "We only have three games left," Trinity Catholic coach Bryan Fox said. "We've got to play every game like it's a desperate situation. We've got to play every game like it's our Super Bowl." The Crusaders broke it open in the first half with a handful of big plays. They only had eight first downs in the game, four of them on the opening 11-play, 76-yard touchdown drive that Nelson capped by hauling in that 18-yard TD pass. The Crusaders gained 9 yards on their first three plays and were in punt formation, but Ludlowe jumped offsides. The Crusaders were also keyed by a dominant interior defensive line that included 260-pound nose tackle Mario Pirolozzi, 315-pound right tackle Santiago Steele, and 255-pound left tackle Eric Stephens. They wreaked havoc on Ludlowe's younger and undersized offensive line to tackle many Falcons for losses of yardage in the first half. Pirolozzi threw Caio Goncalves for a 3-yard loss on Ludlowe's first play from scrimmage and he sacked quarterback Matt Deliberti for a 9-yard loss on the next play. Three plays later, after Ludlowe's first punt, it was Kyle Foti who delivered Trinity's first big offensive play. Foti took the sprint left handoff out of the Wing-T formation, made a sharp cutback and outran the secondary for a 70-yard touchdown run. After a muffed snap on the extra point, Foti scrambled to his right and found John O'Leary in the back of the end zone for the two-point conversion that gave Trinity a 15-0 lead with 3:08 remaining in the first quarter. Pirolozzi tackled running back Mike Guthrie for a 3-yard loss on Ludlowe's ensuing first down, so he had three tackles for losses of yardage on Ludlowe's first four offensive plays. "It helped that I had Santiago and Eric breaking up double teams," Pirolozzi said. "They were taking on double teams and that helped free me up. I was getting into the backfield easily." "We're young on the offensive line. We only have one senior starting," Ludlowe coach Mike Forget said. "They outmanned us by about 50 pounds a man on the line." In the first quarter the Falcons had minus-12 offensive yards on 10 offensive plays. On the third play of the second quarter, Koummal rolled to his right and fired an accurate bomb for that 60-yard scoring strike to Collins. David Arana added the second of his four extra-point kicks to give Trinity a 22-0 lead just 46 seconds into the second quarter. Koummal intercepted a tipped pass and returned it 17 yards to Ludlowe's 17. Four plays later Stephens blasted through a hole opened up by right guard Brian Epp and center Cory Johnson for a 1-yard TD run. On the play after Pirolozzi made his fifth tackle behind the line of scrimmage, O'Leary made a nice sprawling interception at Ludlowe's 26. After a penalty pushed the Crusaders back, Nelson took the option pitch from and went 27 yards to the right pylon to give the Crusaders their 36-0 lead with 1:13 left in the half. Guthrie busted through the right side for a 55-yard gain and Goncalves powered his way into the end zone on fourth-and-goal from the 3 at the end of the half. Then came the second half and the Trinity starters became supporters of their backups from the bench. "First off, we want to make sure our backups get some run when we have the chance to," Fox said. "They practice hard all week. And they've got to be ready to play in case we have injuries, so we want to get them some varsity work." Gelani Lemon scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak for the Falcons with 1:11 remaining in the game. Alex Santos answered with an 86-yard touchdown kickoff return. Copyright © 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
 Big senior defensive tackle Vladimir Joseph swims by an offensive lineman in a 28-20 home victory over Fairfield Ludlowe on October 29, 2005. (CrusaderNation.net / Dana Maul)
 Junior defensive tackle Santiago "Teggy" Steele wraps up a Darien
rusher as his
 Junior center Cory Johnson prepares to snap the ball to fellow classmate
 The Crusader offensive line pushes Bassick around in the mud. The
Crusaders
 Senior wideout Rob Hawthorn races downfield to block as junior fullback
Eric Stephens
 2005 All-FCIAC East Offense Row 1, Left to Right: Eric Wells, Bassick; Willie Epps, McMahon;
Pete Raymond,
 2005 All-FCIAC East Defense Row 1, Left to Right: Joe Luchesi, Danbury; Greg Sabo, Danbury; James
Taylor, Danbury;
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