Fourth Grade Football: Wilton White 8 - New Canaan Black 6

Wilton White 4^th Grade Wins Defensive Battle with New Canaan White

Article by Chris Coffey, video by Tania Smith

The Wilton White 4^th grade football team won a hard fought defensive battle against a very tough New Canaan White team 8 -6 on Sunday morning. 

Wilton’s offense moved the ball well on its first possession behind strong line play from Matt Gulbin, Jack Tinnen, Austin Cameron, Davis Cote, Anthony Passaniti, Brian Cipri and Charlie Hastings. The drive ultimately stalled, however.

On their second possession, Wilton’s offense came out firing with a nice pass play for a first down from quarterback Everett Andersen to wide receiver Ryan Sorbo (videolink- http://youtu.be/JrCpJUEiNT0).

Running back Sean Sullivan then found a hole, created by nice blocking from Michael Coffey and Davis Cote, and galloped 40 yards (videolink: http://youtu.be/sb660iYXcK8).  Sullivan finished the job on the next play scoring Wilton’s only touchdown behind great blocking from Gulbin and Cipri.  Running back Blake Pagano-Walley completed the 2 point conversion with a strong run, making the score 8 – 0.

Wilton’s defense fought hard to protect their lead but New Canaan’s offense showed great discipline and an impressive variety of formations.  Despite some hard tackles on the outside by Michael Colbert and Alex Smith, New Canaan was able to keep their drive alive.  When Will Haljun, Peter Groves, Ryan MacDougall and Brendan Quinn stuffed a play up the middle it looked like Wilton was safe. 

However, New Canaan eventually ran the ball in to make the score 8 – 6.  In an attempt to tie the game, New Canaan went for 2 points.  Wilton’s Matt Gulbin, Jack Tineen and Brendan Sullivan combined to stuff the runner and, though they didn’t know it at the time, protect the winning margin for Wilton.

Despite some hard running by Pagano-Walley, Wilton’s offense only had one more threatening drive on this morning, highlighted by quarterback Sorbo’s 24 yard gain behind the blocking of Owen Pettit and Matthew Murphy (videolink: http://youtu.be/GWH6Iru2ep8).

The rest of the game would see a series of drives for both teams stall as the respective defenses stiffened.  Defensive ends Quinn Wiseman and Austin Cameron made several key tackles as New Canaan repeatedly ran sweeps outside.  Cornerbacks Brendan Sullivan and Connor Healey stopped several New Canaan plays from spelling disaster for Wilton with their hard-nosed tackles.  And when New Canaan tried the middle of Wilton’s defense, linebackers Sullivan and Andersen were there to make multiple tackles with help from outstanding play by Connor Quinn, Alex Smith and Ryan Siegel.  Wilton was not able to seal the victory until a series of key tackles – Sorbo’s tackle on the outside on first down, Brendan Quinn’s hard hit on second down, Cameron and Coffey’s crushing tackle on 3^rd down and Cipri, Pagano-Walley and Tinnen’s gang tackle on 4^th down - ended New Canaan’s final drive of the game.