Xavier football makes it to Connecticut football title game vs. Trumbull

Xavier (Middletown) gave up seven points to Glastonbury in the first 13 seconds of its CIAC Class LL football semifinal Saturday.

Glastonbury senior Malcolm Crosson took a reverse handoff on the opening kickoff from Devin O'Reilly and streaked up the right sideline then made one cut at the 50 to the center of the field for an 89-yard touchdown.

That shocked the troops to order.

Xavier's defense took over from there. The state's consensus No. 1 Falcons shut down Glastonbury's ground game, limiting it to 80 yards on 33 carries (2.42 yards a carry) and stifled the Tomahawks passing game to 106 yards while sacking quarterback Cory Santor five times.

Xavier (12-0) scored 18 straight first-half points and added one touchdown in the third quarter on its way to a 24-13 victory at Jess Dow Field at Southern Connecticut State in New Haven and earned a date this weekend against No. 3 seed Trumbull (11-2) for the championship at the home of the UConn Huskies, Rentschler Field in East Hartford.

Trumbull defeated previously unbeaten Norwich Free Academy 21-6 to earn its title berth.

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"It's great to be back (in the title game). Last year really left a sour taste in my mouth and everybody who was involved in that game," said Xavier head coach Sean Marinan, referring to his team's semifinal loss to Staples (Westport) last year. "So really one of our main goals was to get back to the game, be competitive and hopefully win it."

No play was bigger than senior Graham Stewart's 17-yard fumble recovery for a score with five seconds left in the first half to put Xavier up 18-7.

Glastonbury (10-2) had just dug itself out of a hole at its 2-yard line with a double-wing pitch to Crosson for 18 yards to its 20. On first-and-10, Glastonbury went to a variation of the play in which Crosson takes the pitch and hands off to the other back Joseph Jack into the middle. But Jack couldn't find the handle and Stewart was there to scoop up the ball and rumble into the end zone.

"I can't even tell how big that was," Marinan said. "To open the game, we spotted them a touchdown and then we start to crawl back into it. For the defense to come up and shut them down, to get a defensive score really turned the momentum in our favor, gave our kids a lot of confidence going in at halftime, so we could make adjustments and come out on fire in the second half."

Xavier was forced to punt on its first two possessions, but in the third on a first-and-10 from its 37, junior quarterback Pat D'Amato ran a keeper off the option and sprinted 63 yards for the Falcons' first score.

"We were working on that play all week, it's just a simple option play," D'Amato said. "I just cut right up underneath and we made a great block outside and it was off to the races."

Xavier junior running back Mike Mastrioanna (5 feet 9, 175 pounds), who finished with 114 yards on 28 carries, allowed the Falcons to control the ball on the ground in the second half, carrying seven consecutive times for 48 of a 72-yard, third-quarter drive that ended with Xavier's other quarterback Tim Boyle hooking up on a 10-yard touchdown pass in the right corner of the end zone with Ryan Murphy for its final points.

Xavier put a lot of pressure on Santor (28 yards rushing, 11-for-19 passing) and limited Crosson's touches (10 carries, 44 yards) while the Falcons didn't allow a sack. Xavier rolled up 298 yards on offense, 210 on the ground.

"They're big and physical up front. We're not as big as them," Glastonbury head coach Peter Pfeffer said. "Sometimes that becomes an issue, no matter how strong we are. So they were pushing us around a little bit. We tried to scheme as best we could, then we wanted to throw the ball a little more and they had a great pass rush."

Looking forward to Trumbull, Marinan knows what to expect.

"They're pretty big," Marinan said. "They've got a real good quarterback (Brian Gallo) who runs very well, and actually they use two quarterbacks like we do, they have another kid (Ian Milne) that throws the ball, so it's definitely going to be a challenge. It's going to be a tough game. We played them in '05 (when Xavier won its only state title) and same deal. They had a big, strong team with a lot of speed."

SEMIFINAL HIGHLIGHTS
* In Class S, Montrell Dobbs of Ansonia rushed for 362 yards on 36 carries and five touchdowns in the Chargers' 46-15 victory over Montville.

* In Class M, New London's Jevon Elmore rushed for 151 yards and scored twice, including a 72-yard run, in the Whalers' 30-12 victory over Brookfield.

* In Class L, Casey Cochran of Masuk (Monroe), earlier in the week named the state's Gatorade Player of the Year, went 18-for-23 passing for 368 yards and one touchdown in a 41-0 rout of FCIAC champion Darien.

* In Class L, Kevin Macari of New Canaan caught three touchdown passes and recovered two fumbles on kickoffs, scoring on one in the Rams' 39-21 victory over Daniel Hand (Madison).

* In Class LL, quarterback Ian Milne of Trumbull gained 186 yards of total offense, intercepted a pass and recovered a fumble in the Eagles' 21-6 victory over Norwich Free Academy.

SHORT TURNAROUND
In the first year of the state's expanded playoff system that includes a quarterfinal round for the first time, teams now have two short turnarounds instead of one.

The quarterfinals were played on Tuesday after Thanksgiving, giving four days preparation, and the semis came up just three days after that. For teams like Trumbull, which played in its conference championship, it means five games in 24 days.

"There's nothing easy about that," Marinan said. "It's even for everybody but you try and get your kids back from one game and ready for another game and put in everything that you have to offensively and defensively. It's not a good situation but everybody's dealing with the same thing."

Paul Rosano, the former assistant sport editor of The Hartford Courant and sports editor of The New Haven Register, covers Connecticut for MaxPreps.com. He may be reached at pjrosano@cox.net.