Seventh Grade Football: Wilton Blue 22 - Darien Blue 0

With contributions from all 18 players on the squad, seventh grade Wilton Blue improved to 3-0 on the young football season with a 22-0 thumping of Darien Blue on Sunday at Darien High School.

Demonstrating the level of talent on the roster, 13 different players ran the ball on offense – Cole Stephenson, Nish Wangneo, Sean Purdy, Dan Incao, Maden Herve, Ryan Healey, Michael Gamboa, Dominick Caratazzolo, Dominick Polito, Jimmy O’Brien, Matt Dooley, Kyle Hyzy and Austin Andersen.

On the defensive side of the ball the Warriors were suffocating. Darien had the ball first, but penetration into the backfield by linemen Jack Savarese and Jack Lenz forced the Blue Wave to punt setting up great field position at the Wilton 49 where the offense went to work.

Dooley, Andersen, Hyzy and O’Brien carried the ball on consecutive plays to the Darien 29. On the next play Jack DiRocco made a leaping grab of a Hyzy pass over a Darien defender at the 15. The Warriors went back to the run with Hyzy scoring behind crushing lead blocks from Healey, Dooley and Andersen. DiRocco drilled the kick to put the Warriors up 7-0 just six minutes into the contest.

On the second play of Darien’s next possession, DiRocco blitzed from his linebacker position and leveled the quarterback as he threw while Maden Herve jumped the pass route, picked off the throw and raced untouched into the end zone for the second Warrior touchdown. Again DiRocco’s PAT was good to make the score 14-0.

The Warrior defense did not let up as Caratazzolo, Wangneo and DiRocco all made big hits to thwart Darien’s ground game forcing them to take to the air, but with even less success. Ryan Healey intercepted a pass at the Wilton 45 and returned the ball to the Darien 28, putting the offense in great position once again.

Two plays later Austin Andersen burst up the middle for a 24 yard TD run. The point after kick by DiRocco, which is worth two points against live rushing, was good, pushing the score to 22-0 with just four minutes gone in the second quarter.

The rest of the game was a defensive battle with numerous notable plays by the Warriors. Nick Wert made a leaping deflection of a pass on fourth down, Herve nearly had a second interception while Barrett Brown and Steven Tuin contributed to making the Warriors impenetrable against the run.