Southington, New Canaan, Shelton top football poll

Southington is the new No. 1.

When Southington traveled down to Greenwich last Saturday with its No. 6 ranking to challenge the top-ranked Cardinals, Southington’s Blue Knights rallied back from a 21-point deficit for a dramatic 29-28 victory.

That enabled Southington to vault up five spots and seize No. 1 in the current GameTimeCT Top 10 Football Poll which was released Sept. 26.

The two teams flip-flopped ranking spots as Greenwich dropped down five spots to No. 6.

Southington is No. 1 by the slightest of margins – just two points more than a New Canaan team which maintained its No. 2 ranking.

Southington (3-0), New Canaan (3-0) and third-ranked Shelton (3-0) all received six first-place votes. Southington received 592 polling points, two more than New Canaan’s 590, and Shelton had 549.

New Canaan leads a quartet of FCIAC teams ranked among the top eight as Greenwich (2-1), Trumbull (3-0) and St. Joseph (3-0) are ranked 6-8. Greenwich and Trumbull each received a first-place vote.

Trumbull’s seventh-ranked Eagles rolled to 47-6 victory over East Hartford at their own McDougall Stadium. St. Joseph withstood a late Masuk rally for a 24-21 victory at home, so Trumbull and St. Joseph flip-flopped ranking positions from the previous poll.

Maloney (3-0) and Killingly (3-0) are ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. They exchanged ranking positions from the previous poll as Maloney’s 21-9 victory at Darien caused that effect.

Ansonia (3-0) and West Haven (3-0) each improved to 3-0 last weekend and are ranked ninth and 10th, respectively.

Darien (1-2) received the 20th most polling points and Ridgefield (1-2) got the 28th most as the two FCIAC teams among the 19 total in the “Also receiving votes” category.

After Greenwich took a 21-0 lead over Southington last Saturday going into the second quarter, Southington outscored the host Cardinals 15-0 in the fourth quarter. The Blue Knights cut their deficit to 28-27 on Evan Anderson’s 25-yard touchdown pass to John Flynn with 3:48 remaining in the fourth quarter and then Anderson ran it in for the two-point conversion. Greenwich quarterback Jack Wilson threw three TD passes.

New Canaan’s Rams remained unbeaten with their 14-7 victory over a Fairfield Prep team which was ranked ninth in the previous poll. Luke Reed had touchdown runs of 1 and 33 years, and Matthew Salmini was superb on defense for New Canaan. Salmini picked off a pass and returned it 38 yards to set the Rams up for their first TD drive and he also recovered a fumble.

Listed below is this weekend’s schedule of the eight FCIAC games, including the teams’ overall and division records in parenthesis.

Week Four Schedule

Friday

St. Joseph (3-0 overall, 1-0 FCIAC) at Danbury (3-0, 1-0), 7 p.m.

Bridgeport Central (0-3, 0-1) at New Canaan (3-0, 1-0), 7 p.m.

Staples (2-1, 0-1) at Trumbull (3-0, 1-0), 7 p.m.

Darien (1-2, 1-0) at Fairfield Warde (3-0, 1-0), 7 p.m.

Fairfield Ludlowe (1-2, 0-1) at Norwalk (0-3, 0-1), 7 p.m.

Saturday

Westhill (1-2, 0-1) at Greenwich (2-1, 1-0), 1 p.m.

Ridgefield (1-2, 0-1) at Stamford (2-1, 0-1), 1 p.m.

Brien McMahon (1-2) at Wilton (3-0, 1-0), 4 p.m.

-30-

Leave a Comment