In the first 13 minutes, the home team used three wind-aided passes to their advantage to jump ahead of the undefeated Redcoats and establish momentum. Martavis Isaac and Jashone Cunningham made good reads on Shamar Carr passes, and Adrian Clemons picked off a Berlin pass by adjusting their routes and going to the ball.

"This week really helped us because it was extremely windy," Middletown coach Eric Marszalek said. "We throw the ball 50 times in practice, and they saw what they had to do in that situation. Our kids did a good job of boxing out defenders and getting the ball."

Berlin coach Al Pelligrinelli had a word for that, and a lot of other things Middletown did well -- execution.

"They didn’t surprise us with a lot of things, they just executed," he said. "They did it very well. We knew we had to stop their option, and we didn’t. We knew we had to stop their sweep, and we didn’t. We knew they were very athletic; they have a lot of good athletes. They changed up their defense a little, but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before. They just came after us and shut us down."

Cunningham ran for 55 yards and a pair of touchdowns and Carr completed 7-of-16 passes for 160 yards and two more scores as Middletown (2-2-1) powered to 350 yards of offense that was more than enough.

Isaac turned what looked like an interception in the making into a 67-yard gain on Middletown’s first possession by coming back for a pass held up by the wind. The gain put the ball on the visitors’ eight, and after a penalty, Carr tossed a 13-yard scoring strike to Tom Bishop.

Berlin came right back to take the lead on a 74-yard drive. Joel Hartunian (14-98) and Chris Laroche (13-33) did most of the running, but it was quarterback P.J. Sanzo lugging the ball in from the five for the score.

A bad snap in a punting situation gave Berlin the ball at the Dragons’ 25, and when the offense couldn’t get into the end zone, Bob Dornfreed kicked a 35-yard field goal for an 11-8 lead.

That could have been a big momentum switch, but Middletown scored on its next two snaps to re-establish control and never gave it up.

Carr found Cunningham on a route down the left sideline that turned into a 61-yard touchdown play when the receiver adjusted the pattern and won the jump ball for possession.

On Berlin’s next play Clemons intercepted a Sanzo pass and returned it to the Berlin 20.

Carr rolled right and picked the right hole to duck into and go into the end zone and make it a 20-11 game.

The Middletown defense continued to do its job, and Jaron Murphy and Cunningham tacked on second-half scores for the final margin.

Marszalek said his defense had a little bit of an edge in stopping Berlin’s Wing-T offense.

"We’ve been a Wing-t team until this year, so our returnees knew it," he said.

The defense not only stopped the usual stuff, it also negated Berlin’s adjustments.

"They were trying to shut off the outside stuff, so we tried to go inside. But they stopped us there, too," Pelligrinelli said. "We thought we could throw the ball. We had people we thought were getting to the right spots, but we were able to get things clicking together. That’s what football is. You’ve got to have 11 people working at the same time, and if you only have nine it doesn’t work enough times. That was our problem today.

"We didn’t do it today and they did. That’s why you play all the games."