October 7, 2007Too Little Too Late, St. Joseph Hold Off Trinity 20-12from The Stamford Advocate STAMFORD - With what has already transpired this season, many observers might have anticipated the St. Joseph High School football team blowing out Trinity Catholic yesterday at Alumni Field. With the Cadets coming in unbeaten (3-0) and off a rousing 35-27 victory at New Canaan last week, and the young Crusaders winless, that feeling was certainly plausible. And that loomed as a strong possibility when the Cadets raced out to a 20-0 lead 17 minutes into the game. But then the Trinity Catholic coaches called on their players to summon up their pride during a halftime speech. The Crusaders did just that, and with 4:48 remaining in the game they were 33 yards away from a potential touchdown and a two-point conversion that would have tied it. Then the Cadets, who were a bit undermanned themselves because of injuries, got an interception from Russ Renfer that enabled them to hold on for a 20-12 victory. Mike Dinihanian caught two long touchdown passes (78 and 39 yards) from Nick Piccirillo to help St. Joseph improve to 4-0 overall and in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference. "We made a few big plays, which helped, but we didn't make enough big plays. I think we were half asleep," St. Joseph coach Joe Della Vecchia said. "The bottom line is it's a 'W.' We'll take it. We survived one." Trinity is 0-4 overall and in the FCIAC. "It's the first time all year I can say that we played with courage and we played with heart," Trinity Catholic coach Bryan Fox said. "At halftime we challenged the kids and asked them: 'What are you made of?' And they showed us. You have to give credit to St. Joseph. They're a good football team." A couple of reasons for the closeness of the game were because of who the Crusaders did have - the return of John O'Leary, who was stellar at wide receiver - and who the Cadets did not have. They were without their best player, Ryan Carino, sidelined by a thigh injury, and Luke Oczkowski. O'Leary, usually the starting quarterback, returned after being sidelined last week with an injury to his right (throwing) shoulder. He talked his way into the lineup as wide receiver and junior Stephen Scalero started at quarterback. O'Leary caught five passes for 126 yards, including a 13-yard TD reception that completed the scoring with 11:20 remaining in the game. Scalero completed 10-of-22 passes, threw two TD passes and was picked off four times. His 11-yard touchdown pass to Carlos Romero cut Trinity's deficit to 20-6 with 5:17 remaining in the third quarter. "I know some people may look at (Scalero's) line score and it might not look so good," Fox said. "But nobody watching the game would know that on his touchdown pass to Romero, that was his third look. When you can go through reads like that and make a play like that, that's pretty good. I thought he was tremendous today." "Their quarterback played very well for them," Della Vecchia agreed. "He made some big, clutch plays. We put some pressure on him and he was pretty calm back there." Trinity fullback Nick Cortese rushed for 96 yards on 23 carries. Though the Cadets ended up plus-6 in turnover ratio, the Crusaders got the first break, on the opening kickoff, when Vince Carter recovered an onside kick. But Dinihanian made an excellent, leaping interception in the end zone three plays later. Trinity's defense held and the Crusaders drove from their own 21 to St. Joseph's 33, where the Cadets' Sam Ditchkus picked off a pass at the 22. On the next play Piccirillo rolled to his right to elude the pass rush and then heaved the ball about 60 yards downfield. Trinity freshman Michael Rivas had good coverage, he and Dinihanian jumped up for the ball, Dinihanian came down with it at the 25 and then took it the rest of the way to the end zone. Cortese caught a pass in the flat, St. Joseph's Rob Domrowski popped him immediately to knock the ball loose and Brian Epp recovered the fumble for the Cadets at Trinity's 38. Three plays later Piccirillo scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak on the last play of the first quarter. Piccirillo's 39-yard TD pass to Dinihanian, along with Casey Olayos' second extra point, gave the Cadets their 20-0 lead with 7:01 remaining in the second quarter. From that point on, a Trinity defense that started three sophomores and a freshman limited St. Joseph to 66 yards on 22 plays for the game's final 31 minutes, and that included a sprawling 39-yard reception from Colin Morris. "I expected a little bit of a letdown after the big win last week," Della Vecchia said. "And I expected a good game from Trinity Catholic. We tried to remind our kids (about avoiding a letdown) all week. Without Carino, we were a little bit flat today." "Once the game is over, you've got to focus on going 1-0 the following week," Fox said. "There's nothing you can do about yesterday. Hopefully, the mindset we'll take is we wash this out of our hair tonight and we go get them tomorrow." Copyright © 2007, 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;
|
|
|
|
|
Trinity
Catholic High School Football |
Site design by spinn
creations |
