2 weeks Ago By Kevin Roberts
NAUGATUCK – Freshman Brandon Andoh scored his second touchdown of the game on a 3-yard run with 28 seconds to play in the game Wednesday night to lead the Naugatuck High football team to a 33-28 victory over Ansonia and its second straight Naugatuck Valley League crown. The win was the third in the last four games of the storied series for the Greyhounds and marked the first time they have won back-to-back games over the Chargers since the 1986 and 1987 seasons. Naugatuck head coach Chris Anderson said before the game to expect an exciting game, because he had a few surprises.
The big one was that he switched the team’s offense from the Wing-T that they used all season back to the spread offense they used last year. Quarterback Ethan Jones, Andoh and Ryan Deitelbaum made the offensive change look brilliant as they drove the ball up and down the field with a great mix of passing and running the ball. The Naugy defense, led by Eli Pena with a pair of interceptions, also played its part by making big stops when they were needed.
Anderson was so impressed that he awarded the MVP to the entire team. Andoh finished with 126 yards rushing on 14 carries, including touchdown runs of 3 and 54 yards. Jones threw a pair of touchdown passes, of 25 and 13 yards to Jaiden Roach, and Deitelbaum scored on a 47-yard touchdown run.
Trailing by nine points at the half, Ansonia rallied in the second half to take its first lead, 28-27, with 11:05 to play in the fourth quarter on a 68-yard touchdown run by Quintez Whittle and a 2-point conversion run by Whittle, as well. Whittle finished with 300 yards rushing on 35 carries, including another 72-yard touchdown run. Naugy led, 21-12, to open the second half and surprised the Chargers with an onside kick that was recovered by Brandon Andoh at the Ansonia 44-yard line.
The Greyhounds drove the ball to the Ansonia 13 but then turned it over on 4th-and-11 when Romeo Charles knocked down a pass in the end zone. It marked the first time in the game that Naugy’s offense was stopped. Ansonia faced a long field and a two-score but proved to be resilient.
On the seventh play Whittle broke off a 72-yard touchdown run. The Greyhounds struck first using two big pass plays to quickly take a 7-0 lead. Starting from their own 48 yard line, Jones hit Ryan Deitelbaum for 26 yards on the first play from scrimmage.
After a 1-yard run by Jones and an incomplete pass, Jones connected with Jaiden Roach for a 25-yard touchdown pass. Ansonia responded in a very different fashion, driving 59 yards in 12 plays to score on a 17-yard pass play from Romeo Charles to Daniel Ayala. The Chargers used their running game to move the ball easily downfield, but once they got to the Naugatuck 5-yard line they incurred three false start penalties and had a pair of runs for losses.
A 9-yard run by Charles gave them a 4th and-goal from the 17 yard line, which Charles converted with a tremendous pass to the left corner of the end zone to Ayala. When Naugatuck went offsides on the conversion kick attempt, Brockett decided to go for two points, but a bad snap foiled that attempt. Any momentum the Chargers may have gained with that drive, Naugy snatched it right back.
Again starting in great field position at their own 46-yard line, freshman Brandon Andoh sc ored on the first play with an impressive show of speed. He burst through the line of scrimmage, bounced out to the left and outraced the rest of the Ansonia defense for a 54-yard touchdown run and a 14-6 Naugatuck lead. The Chargers didn’t flinch as they bounced right back with a 13-play 65-yard yard drive that ended with a 14-yard touchdown run by Chrison Fogle.
Once again, Ansonia went for a 2-point conversion and Fogle was tackled in the backfield. That left Naugy leading by two points, 14-12. Naugatuck’s offense couldn’t be stopped in the first half, however.
The Greyhounds perfectly mixed the pass and run in their third possession, going 76 yards in 10 plays to score on a 13-yard pass from Jones to Roach. That gave Naugy a 21-12 lead with 2:39 to play in the half. It proved to be enough time for Ansonia to drive the ball from its own 44-yard yard all the way to the Naugatuck 9-yard line.
With just seven seconds left in the second quarter at that point, the Chargers decided to attempt a field goal, which was blocked. The Naugy team rushed onto the field in excitement as the play was still going on, however, and after a brief celebration kept running to the locker room. Ansonia coach Tom Brockett ran out onto the field and vehemently argued to officials that the Greyhounds couldn’t rush the field like that until the play was blown dead.
The Naugatuck team had already gone into the locker room, but Brockett would not allow his team to leave the sideline until he made his case to the game officials. Ultimately the officials decided that since the Naugatuck team had rushed onto the field in excitement after the blocked field goal attempt, the Greyhounds were guilty of an illegal participation penalty with too many players on the field. The officials made the Greyhounds come back out to run one-untimed play from the 5-yard line.
Whittle tried to run the ball from the Wildcat formation, but Naugy linebacker Ethan Williams met him in the backfield for a 5-yard loss and the half was officially over..
