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"They spanked us last year pretty good and we’ve got a pretty good football team," Rocky Hill coach Dave Coyne said. "They’re a good football team and we played well to beat them. They made it close there near the end. They came back stronger cause they’re a good team. The kids did a good job."
Hanging on to what had been a 27-2 lead, the Terriers defense, which was largely responsible for the lead in the first place, saw what the Redcoats are capable of in the second half.
Berlin began its comeback with a 23-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jim Connelly to Chris Schroder. It got another scoring play when Connelly found running back Tom Liberda open downfield on a fourth down play with 4:02 left in the third. A pair of two-point runs pulled the Redcoats to within nine points.
But, the Terriers defense buckled down in the fourth. On crucial back-to-back plays they sacked Connelly. Then Sean Burgwardt, who started the game off with a big interception, knocked down Connelly’s fourth down pass. From there Rocky Hill ran the ball effectively, assisted by Burgwardt’s 33-yard catch, as time slipped away on Berlin.
"He’s a great, great athlete," Coyne said of Burgwardt. "He was cramping up. We wanted to do more with him and we couldn’t because he was cramping up ..He’s gonna play at the next level."
Rocky Hill’s lead was the product of its defense. On the third play of the game, Burgwardt intercepted Connelly’s underthrown ball and returned it to the 25 yard-line. That set up a 25-yard pass from Doug Elliot to Chris Tyler for seven. After Dan Carducci recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, Elliot made another precise pass, this time to Mark Fritz, for a 14-0 lead.
"That was huge. We came out and our kids were ready to play," Coyne said of the early spark.
The Terriers increased their lead behind running back Greg Lappen, who had a short two-yard run midway through the second and a 75-yard sprint on the first play from scrimmage after the break. From there it was just a matter of hanging on.
"[Lappen’s] a horse," Coyne said. "He hasn’t gotten the ball as much the last couple of games cause the other teams have dictated what we’ve done. They took him out of the game ..Tonight we broke him out a couple of times. The second half we came out and said we wanted to score on our first drive ..I didn’t know it was gonna be the first play."
Berlin found that playing from behind is best avoided at all costs.
"We had a slow start and turnovers and they jumped on us," Berlin coach John Capodice said. "It took a little while to get the offense going and we were playing catchup most of the night which is hard to do ..We knew they were an excellent team coming in and they played a great game at home on their field."
The win could up another battle of unbeatens next weekend when Rocky Hill travels to Northwest Catholic. The Indians face RHAM this afternoon. The Redcoats host unbeaten Plainville next Friday.
