Big Plays Power Farmington Past Maloney 28-6

Just two years ago, the Farmington High football team was a program in disarray, particularly on defense, as the Indians were victimized by one big play after another en route to a rough 3-7 record.

A quintessential example of that season came during Farmington’s second game, when Conard High running back Jonathon Esposito scored three touchdowns of over 50 yards on the first three times he touched the ball as the Chieftains romped to a 41-0 victory.

Fast forward to this season, and the tables have clearly turned, evidenced by Farmington’s 28-6 victory over Maloney (Meriden) that featured the Indians explosiveness on offense during a rain-soaked Friday evening in Farmington.

Farmington’s Adam Buono (13 carries, 103 yards and 3 touchdowns), tight end Mike English (2 catches, 72 yards) and backup quarterback Jeremy Buck (5 carries, 55 yards, 1 touchdown) spearheaded the Indians’ attack, which included five plays of over 30 yards or more.

The defense’s two interceptions - one by Kenny Jones to set up the first score, the other by Mike Landry to virtually end the game - also served notice to Central Connecticut Conference teams that Farmington will play the victim no more.

“You get beat by the big play enough and you’re going to start stressing the big play,” Farmington head coach Chris Machol said. “We’ve been focusing on that. We’ve been trying to be a little bit more creative and have some fun with the offense, and on defense, we’re being agressive. We have some real athletes in the secondary. Last year,  [opponents] were kind of lobbing it up and we were giving up a lot on broken plays. We emphasize it making it a part of what we want to do being a big play team.”

After a scoreless first quarter in which both teams fought for field position, Farmington took a 7-0 lead in the second period on Buono’s one-yard touchdown plunge with 6:57 left in the half.

The score was set up by a nifty 36-yard English reception down the left sideline from starting quarterback Brian Logan (7 for 16, 133 yards).

The Indians had a golden opportunity to further pad their lead at the end of the second quarter, advancing to the Spartans’ 1-yard line with a little less than a minute to go.

But Maloney held on a Farmington first-down run and the ball slipped through Logan’s hand as he tried to spike the ball on second down, allowing the clock to tick down to 0:00.

“That should [have gotten] our kids get excited and it didn’t,” Maloney (0-2) head coach Bob Zito said. “We’re searching for a lot of things.”

Such a sequence of mistakes might have doomed the Indians two seasons ago. But this is a different squad with a different attitude.

“I like to think it comes back to confidence,” Machol said. “This year, we’re mentally stronger than we have been in the past. Our players know we did a lot of things on offense in the first half, we just couldn’t get the finish. That’s on me for not getting that done and not going over that enough.”

After the teams traded possessions in the third quarter, Farmington struck again, as Buono scampered 18 yards up the middle for a touchdown to cap a drive that started on the Maloney 48-yard line to put the Indians up 14-0.

Maloney made things interesting in the fourth quarter, putting together its best drive of the game and scoring on Karim St. Luce’s (16 rushes, 96 yards, 1 touchdown) 1-yard touchdown run to bring the Spartans to within eight points at 14-6 with 6:51 left in the game.

That’s when Farmington kicked it into high gear. While trying to run out the clock, Buck scored on a 31-yard quarterback keeper down the left side of the field to put the Indians up 21-6 with 4:26 left in the game.

After Maloney turned the ball over on downs, Buono salted the game away with a 45-yard touchdown run to make it 28-6.

“Our bread and butter is our offensive line,” Machol said. “We run the ball extremely well. Their defensive line and linebackers were giving us fits. We could not do what we wanted to do, which was run the ball up the middle. We tried to take advantage of [other things] and get some big plays on the outside and we were lucky enough to do so.”

Offense gets most of the press, but the Farmington defense, led by inside linebackers Sean Fern and Harry Pacheco, and defensive ends Thomas Stevens and Michael Berlandy, was equally stout.

It was a performance that impressed Zito, too.

“Every time they needed something big, they got it,” Zito said. “Their tight end [English], we couldn’t stop him. The one play on the fourth down to him seemed like everybody on the team got a hand on him and we couldn’t bring him down.  They were better at the skill positions than we were tonight. They did a great job on defense.”

Farmington improved to 2-0, and the only issue appears to be a coach’s dream - having two equally capable quarterbacks to run the offense.

Machol insists that, despite Buck engineering two scoring drives, that the starting job remained with Logan and that no quarterback controversy existed.

“I told them at the beginning of the season, they both had zero varsity plays,” Machol said. “Logan is our starter, but I told them that I would play them both in every game.”

Farmington’s next game is next Friday, Sept. 30, at home against Bristol Central.

Farmington 28, Maloney (Meriden) 6

Maloney      0 0 0 6 - 6

Farmington 0 7 7 14-28

Scoring:

Second Quarter

F - Adam Buono 1-yard run (Steven Davids kick) 6:57

Third Quarter

F - Buono 18-yard run (Davids kick) 1:09

Fourth Quarter

M - Karim St. Luce 1-yard run (kick failed) 6:51

F - Jeremy Buck 30-yard run (Davids kick) 4:26

F - Buono 45-yard run (Davids kick) 2:37

RUSHING - Maloney: St. Luce 16-96-1, Handy Ellison 7-29, K'Vone West 6-18, Mike Gulino 1- -7

Farmington: Buono 13-103-3, Logan 9-29, Ivan Guadalupe 7-17, Buck 5-55-1

PASSING - Maloney: Gulino 8-20, 68 yards, 2 INT

Farmington: Logan 7-16, 133 yards

RECEIVING - Maloney: St. Luce 4-47

Farmington: English 2-72, Max Spracklin 2-8, Michael Landini 2-45, Guadalupe 1-8.