Cards blast Vikes, prep to spear Rams

Written by Paul Silverfarb
Thursday, 05 November 2009 00:03

The Greenwich High School football team did exactly what it needed to against Westhill High School Friday night. After a three-week road trip and losing to Central 14-13 last week, the Cardinals finally returned to the friendly confines of Cardinal Stadium and took its aggression out on the Vikings, winning 45-7.

“We’re back on track,” Greenwich head coach Rich Albonizio said. “You can’t play your best all the time and last week we picked the wrong time and wrong team to do it against. Central is a good football team. Tonight it was very important for us to come out fast and put this team away. We didn’t want them to get any confidence and wanted to get focused on next week’s game.”

Making a huge statement to start the game, the Cardinals ran off 26 points in the opening quarter and added 13 more in the second.

Michael Dunster scored Greenwich’s first two touchdowns, one of them from two yards out and the other from four yards.

“Tonight was huge,” Dunster said. “Last week we experienced something that we never want to feel again. We had a great week of practice and got back to doing what we know how to do, which is playing Cardinal football. Last week we kind of had a letdown offensively and we really knew we had to get back on track quickly and we did just that tonight.”

After one captain gave Big Red 12 quick points, it was another captain, Peter Cavini, who led the way. Cavini found the end zone three times before intermission. His two touchdown runs of five yards each, and another from one yard out, helped build a 32-0 lead.

“We had great blocking, great passing and it was a complete team effort,” Cavini said. “We had to get our respect back. We had to get our confidence back. We planned on beating up on them and didn’t take them lightly, obviously. We didn’t like the outcome the last time we took someone lightly, so for us, we come out like every week is the championship.”

Big Red’s Evan Kavanagh finished the first half in grand fashion, picking off the Westhill pass at the Greenwich 19 and running it back 81 yards for the touchdown.

In total, Greenwich racked up more than 300 yards of offense in the first half. Senior quarterback Michael Lefflbine was a perfect 6-for-6 for 127 yards.

“After last week, a lot of guys had their head down,” senior quad-captain James Utton said. “Although we lost only by one point last week, it was more than that. We didn’t execute on offense and our defense was a little lax. A lot of guys picked it up and worked really hard during this week. It showed during the game. We wanted to make a statement during the first half and that’s what we had to do.”

Greenwich’s final score of the game came midway through the third quarter, as back-up quarterback Kevin Collins dropped back and threw a 20-yard touchdown completion to Colin Dunster in the corner of the end zone for the 45-0 lead.

With the victory, Big Red could finally focus on its biggest game of the year to date, New Canaan, which will be played tomorrow night at Greenwich’s Cardinal Stadium.

The Rams are considered the class act of Connecticut football this year and take a perfect 7-0 record to its game against Greenwich. Standout quarterback Turner Baty has been on fire his past three games, throwing for over 350 yards and 11 touchdowns against Wilton, St. Joseph and Seymour high schools.

Offensively, both Greenwich and New Canaan are strong. The Cardinals enter tomorrow’s game having scored 259 points and racking up 2,060 total yards, while the Rams scored 273 points and have plowed its competition with 3,181 yards of offense. Defensively both are equally solid, as Greenwich has only given up 55 points all season compared to New Canaan’s 83.

“New Canaan is a really good team, but we are a really good team too,” Utton said. “We’re going to give it to them. We’ve been waiting for them. Obviously we had some trouble last week, but right now everybody on this team is focused on New Canaan. If we’re playing and practicing like we normally do, then I don’t think there is a team that could beat us.”

Greenwich’s game against the Rams has huge implications for the remainder of the season. The Cardinals currently stand eighth in the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference class LL rankings. Of the four teams that qualify at the end of the season for the class LL tournament, two teams, Glastonbury and Staples, both enter week eight with perfect records. Xavier and Cheshire high schools would be the third and fourth teams in the playoffs if the season ended today.

Big Red currently needs 80 points to find its way in the playoffs and would have to jump over Hamden, Central and Newtown in the process. While the state tournament is still up in the air, Greenwich most likely needs to win its remaining games in order to compete in the Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference championship game later on this month.

“New Canaan is our season,” Albonizio said. “We’ve got to play our best and to be the best, you have to beat the best. They have a great offense, defense and are very well coached. We’re expecting a battle. We’ve got a lot of tough games ahead, but we’re going to focus on New Canaan and take it one game at a time like we always try to do.”

“We’re going to do a lot of hitting and we want to get everybody hungry for New Canaan,” Michael Dunster said. “It’s a big game and we all need to be on top of our game if we want to come away with the victory. They are a great team and have a great quarterback and great line, but hopefully we could control the ball and play the way we know how. I have confidence in our team. We have a lot of great players willing to work and I think we could make something happen.”

After the game against the Rams, Greenwich still have no time to rest, as they will play St. Joseph High School and Staples on Thanksgiving to round out its season. However, it’s the game tomorrow night against New Canaan that is on the mind of everybody right now.

“The next few games will be very physical and I would say that the team that hits the hardest and more physical will come out on top,” Cavini said. “We’re going to practice hard next week and see how it goes from there. Right now we’re focused on New Canaan and I think that we’re more than capable of beating them if we play to the top of our game. They are just like us.”

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