West Hartford’s Conard High School hosted East Hartford for a Friday Night Lights football game on Sept. 25.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Discipline and execution. They helped bring the Conard football team to the threshold of a 3-0 start for the first time in a decade. Friday night they deserted the Red Wolves at the worst times as they fell to the East Hartford Hornets 26-21.

Conard had several good opportunities in the second half to grab a lead but failed to execute at key times. The worst may have come in the team’s final drive while trailing by 5. The defense set them up for a game winning drive with huge stops by Ian Caldwell with a handful of jersey tackle on second down, then Abbas Abdelkarim and Nyshaun Myers on third down, and then a pack of Red Wolf defenders stopping the run on fourth down and giving the ball back to the offense with 3:17 to play at their own 39.

The offense, which had sputtered in its previous two possessions went for it on first down when quarterback Henry Tamaccio let loose a long ball down the middle intended for Graham Lamoureux. The senior had gotten past three defenders into the clear but the ball – pushed by a strong wind – was out of his reach. On fourth down Tamaccio found Lamoureux on a short, underneath crossing pass. He took the pass and battered his way through and around of Hornet tacklers before finally being taken down at the 20.

East Hartford was called for a facemask on the tackle, setting Conard up with a 1st-and-goal at the 5 with 2:18 to play. Before they could run another play, Conard was called for a false start on first down. On the next play Tamaccio kept the ball, rolled to his right and raced into the end zone for the go-ahead score. But there was a flag on the field and this time Conard was called for holding, moving the ball back to the 20 with 1:45 to play.

On first down the pass was dropped, second and third down saw incomplete passes, and on fourth down the pass was out of reach of the receiver in the back of the end zone. East Hartford had to run off 1:24 of the clock and quarterback Jeremiah Moore took a pair of knees in the victory formation to run out the clock and secure the win.

“The penalties at the end when we were in position to go ahead were self-inflicted and we just can’t do that,” said Conard head coach Matt Cersosimo.

The final series of plays might have looked a lot different if not for some poor clock management at the end of the first half. On third down at the 5, but with under :15 to play, Conard opted to run the ball, handing it to Holden Smith who tried to hammer his way into the end zone but he was stopped short. The Wolves tried to rush out the field goal unit, but the clock expired before they could snap the ball and East Hartford took the 20-14 lead into the locker room.

“I should have thrown it at the end of the first half,” said Cersosimo. “Do I kick myself for that? Yes, but I wanted it in the hands of our best ball carrier. I take full responsibility.” If Conard had managed to hit what would have been a chip shot field goal at that point they would have trailed by 3. Tack on the touchdown they would score in the second half and instead of needing the touchdown to win the game, they could have kicked a short field goal and walked away with the 27-26 victory.

The game was packed with action and excitement from the opening kickoff, something anyone who saw last year’s game was expecting. In that game the two teams combined for 22 touchdowns in a wild 80-74 win by Conard. It is the highest scoring high school football game in Connecticut state history.

Friday night, Lamoureux opened things with a long kickoff return putting the Red Wolves 1st-and-10 at the East Hartford 45. Smith and Tamaccio masterfully orchestrated a near perfect drive of running plays that saw Smith plow the ball in from the 1 with 9:11 to go in the first. The Conard defense held on the next drive in a 4-and-out for the Hornets, but the Conard offense returned the favor when they got the ball back. Moore used his arm and legs, and running back Ayden Barber carried the load to set up a Moore TD pass. An extra point missed by the visitors made it a 7-6 game.

On the kickoff Lamoureux once again was a weapon, but a penalty on Conard brought the ball all the way back to its own 15-yard line. Two plays later the opening quarter ended.

After Conard was stopped at its own 44 on a 4th-and-2, Moore once again engineered a drive that ended when he took the ball up the middle for a touchdown. The Hornets went for two this time and converted to take the 14-7 lead. Then it was Conard’s turn on offense and a catch and run by Lamoureux and middle screen to Smith kept the drive alive and Tamaccio connected with Myers on the TD pass. The extra point by Conard tied the game at 14 with 4:57 to go in the half.

East Hartford began their next drive at the Conard 44, and Barber carried the load on the ground. On a fourth down run for a first down by Barber, Lamoureux was injured making the tackle and Moore went after Lamoureux’s replacement on first down but overthrew his receiver. On the next play Moore found Charran Ward on a quick out and the senior broke the tackle of Aiden Saez – who had come in as the injury replacement –and scampered into the end zone making it 21-14 Hornets.

Neither team managed to score on their opening possessions in the second half, but with 10:05 on the clock in the third, Tamaccio started a drive that would end in another Conard score. The quarterback ran for a pair of first downs to keep the drive moving before he found Lamoureux on a 40-yard catch and run for the touchdown to tie the game at 21.

The game’s final scoring drive came from East Hartford and took less than three minutes. The big play was a long pass from Moore to Ward which put the ball at the Conard 3. Two plays later Moore took it up the middle for the score, but Tyler Gancy stuffed Moore on the 2-point try to make it a five-point game, 26-21, with 4:48 to go in the third.

That would be all the scoring in the game as a combination of good defense and some poor offensive execution on both sides followed.

Despite the loss, Cersosimo – in his 14th season as the head coach – said he was proud of how his players showed resilience in the game. “I give them credit for the fight they showed,” he said. “They (players) believe in the work they are doing every day and I can’t wait to get back to practice where it all starts.”

Game notes

• Lamoureux was the best player on the field for Conard. His kick returns, solid defensive tackling, and ability to catch passes and make tacklers miss, kept his team in the game and the fans excited. “He is so valuable in all three phases of the game,” Cersosimo said.
• Conard entered the game as one of six Class L teams to be unbeaten entering the third week of play and were ranked number No. 7.
• All three of the Red Wolves games have been close ones. A 47-46 OT win over South Windsor opened the season followed by a 26-21 win over Hamden in week 2.
• Next up is a battle with Maloney next Friday night at home.

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