Football Wrap-up

Winning 

week boosts

local gridiron 

spirits

By Ron P. Coderre

With Halloween fast approaching, the spirits, not ghosts and goblins, of high school and prep school gridiron teams were visited by the winning spirits this week.  All local football entries with the exception of Killingly witnessed success.

The Quinebaug Valley Pride opened play on Friday evening under the arcs at The St. Marie-Greenhalgh Sports Complex with a convincing win over visiting O’Brien Tech.  On Saturday, Plainfield returned to game competition following a bye week.  The Panthers came back with a vengeance, easily taking the measure of Providence Country Day in a game played in the Ocean State.

Hyde-Woodstock, which has only stumbled once this season, continued its winning ways with a big offensive showing in a victory on the road in New Hampshire over the Holderness School.  Pomfret School elated the home crowd with a three-point win over Canterbury School.

The lone school to have a “trick” played on them in this primarily “treat” week was Killingly, which was embarrassed in front of its home crowd by the visiting Stonington Bears.

Murphy, Who Else? Leads Wolfpack

 in Huge Offensive Showing

Who is Jimmy Murphy?  That’s the question local football followers are beginning to ask. Why are they asking the question?  Maybe it’s because “Murph” is a very talented football player.

Jimmy Murphy is a running back at Hyde-Woodstock, where he plays for coach Sean Saucier.  People want to know about him because he seems to have a nose for the goal line.  

On Saturday against Holderness, Murphy led his Wolfpack team to a huge 58-38 victory with an offensive performance that’s probably never occurred in these parts, ever.  He scored seven touchdowns, while rushing for 292 yards.  Spectacular?  I guess it might even warrant a shot at Sports Illustrated Faces in the Crowd section.

In the opening week of the season Murphy had a four-touchdown afternoon and along the way has also produced a three-touchdown game this season.  A trip to Woodstock might be worth it to see Murphy perform on the spectacular synthetic turf field at Hyde.

Murphy’s teammate, quarterback Marcus Greenridge is also no slouch.  Greenridge scored the other touchdown for the Wolfpack in the win over Holderness.  Greenridge is a very adept signal caller, as he and “Murph” have led Hyde-Woodstock to a great 4-1 start to the season.

Pomfret School, thirsting for a win for coach Henry Large was able to secure its second victory of the season against three losses when the Griffins edged Canterbury School 33-30 at home.

Pomfret jumped out to a 14-8 first period advantage thanks to a touchdown run of 7 yards and a 14 yard aerial score by Emanuel Calmar.  Calmar’s second score came on a pass from signal caller Maguire Crouse.  The Griffs stretched the advantage to 21-8 at halftime as the elusive Calmar tallied again, this time on a 46-yard scamper.  Three Tommy Wickham point-after-touchdown kicks rounded out the first half scoring.

Canterbury dominated the second half, outscoring the home team 22-12 but a third period touchdown by Shawn O’Loughlin on a 21-yard run and a Josh Genovese 4-yard plunge put the Griffins over the edge for the three-point victory.  

Calmar, who’s been a workhorse out of the backfield for Pomfret all season, finished the day with 197 yards on 23 carries.  Quarterback Crouse was 6-for-11 in the passing department for 114 yards and one touchdown for Pomfret, which raised its record to 2-3 on the season.

Big Offensive Week for Pride and Panthers

The Quinebaug Valley Pride put together a complete game performance for coach Joe Asermelly, easily rolling past O’Brien Tech 41-8 for its second victory of the season.  Running back Raif Santerre continued his solid play, running for 113 yards on 11 carries but Jeremee Perez emerged as the hero of this win.

Perez opened the Pride scoring with a 73-yard run at the onset of the contest and Asermelly’s charges never looked back.  Perez also had a 12-yard TD tally to open the second stanza.  He posted a spectacular performance with 159 yards on only eight carries.  Santerre had scoring runs of 10, 27 and 20 yards, while Cody LaScola closed out the scoring with two-yard fourth quarter touchdown burst.

The Pride had a banner day as its entire yardage was gained on the ground, amassing 427 yards in running roughshod over O’Brien Tech.  The win lifted the QVP record to 2-4.

Plainfield got back into action with a worthwhile trip to Providence that produced a 47-20 victory over Providence Country Day.  The Panthers scoring on six of their first eight possessions raced out to a 36-6 halftime advantage and were never threatened.

Five different players hit paydirt for the Panthers as they totaled more than 300 yards of offense in the game.  Jordan Federer opened the scoring on a 22-yard pass from quarterback Steve Jankowski.  Tyler Ballard had a pair of scores, the first on a 22-yard pass from Jankowski and the second on a 21-yard run.  Cameron Gonzales (22-yard run) and Hunter Griffin (41-yard run) finished the Plainfield scoring.  Sandwiched in the middle of all the Panther scoring was a 13-yard Jankowski TD run.

Federer led the Plainfield ground game with 84 yards from scrimmage.  He was joined in the running game by Griffin who had 74 yards on seven carries and Gonzales who was 5-60.  Plainfield is 4-1 on the year.

Outmanned Killingly was white washed by the visiting Stonington Bears 35-0 as the Redmen can’t seem to solve the Bears who haven’t lost to Killingly since 2004.  Killingly is 1-5 overall and 0-3 in the Eastern Connecticut Conference Medium Division.