The Hall High School football team won its first game of the season in West Hartford on Saturday afternoon, a 59-16 rout of Enfield.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

Spencer Boucher-Zazzaro ran for 346 yards on 12 carries and had a hand in five Hall touchdowns as the Titans football team won its first game of the year, 57-19, beating Enfield on Saturday afternoon.

“It feels amazing to get the first win of the season,” said Boucher-Zazzaro after the win.

To put things in perspective, Hall had scored just 29 points combined in its first three games. They were averaging 2 yards per carry and just 36 rushing yards per game with Boucher-Zazzaro and Ben Carlson tied for the team lead in rushing with a total of 48 yards each.

On Saturday, head coach Steve Markie decided to change things up on offense. “We decided that on the opening drives of each half we were going to run the ball,” he said. That meant using Carlson, Boucher- Zazzaro, and Jordan Scher in the backfield taking direct snaps. It also meant all but abandoning the passing game with quarterback Noah Kabakoff.

It started with Boucher-Zazzaro hitting on a pair of big runs for Hall. Carlson followed up by running through a would-be tackler for a first down at the Enfield 35 before he took a direct snap and went for 20 more. On the Titans’ first pass of the game, it would be Boucher-Zazzaro finding Jordan Scher open for the 16-yard TD pass.

The next possession saw Boucher-Zazzaro break out a 68-yard scoring run from scrimmage just 12 seconds into the second quarter and it was 14-0 Hall. Enfield found its offensive game with their next possession. Helped by a long pass interference call on Hall, quarterback Sawyer Pequito engineered an Eagles drive that saw him run for 43 yards on 1st-and-10, and then punch it in from the 1 on the next play to cut the lead in half.

Carlson and Boucher-Zazzaro alternated running plays to open Hall’s third possession before Carlson rumbled for 20 yards and on the next play Boucher- Zazzaro took the direct snap and went 25 yards to the house for the 21-7 lead.

Enfield was not ready to give up and when they got the ball back Pequita launched a 37-yard pass to move the ball to the Hall 28. One play later Hall was called for a facemask moving inside the Titans 10. Pequita kept the ball on the next play and scooted into the end zone for Enfield.

When Hall got the ball back following the kickoff, it took them 19 seconds to score another touchdown. Again, it was Boucher-Zazzaro this time going 65 yards from scrimmage for the score. On the ensuing kickoff, Hall drilled a squib kick that bounced off an up-man for Enfield and was recovered by Scher at midfield.

On the first play from scrimmage, it was Boucher-Zazzaro taking the direct snap and going through the left side of the line, and then down the sideline for the score. “He was great and is just so dynamic,” said Markie of his senior running back. “We wanted to get the ball into his hands and Ben’s (Carlson) hands and they made that happen.”

Hall went for the 2-point conversion and James Jones followed the block by Carlson around the left side and into the end zone to make it a 36-13 Titans lead. On the play the official on the far side standing at the goal line signaled good, the referee standing in the middle of the end zone ran in and signaled no good. The officials conferred and ruled Jones did get in the end zone.

After stopping Enfield on its next three plays, the Eagles opted to punt the ball away, but Evan Riddle busted through the middle and blocked the kick. It drifted up field and right into the arms of Scher at his own 35, and he streaked untouched into the end zone for another Hall touchdown. On the PAT, Boucher-Zazzaro, who was holding for the kick, instead flipped it to Kabakoff who found Carlson wide open in the end zone and hit him with the conversion pass to make it 44-13 at intermission.

Hall received the kickoff to open the second half and got excellent field position when Carlson returned it to the Hall 47. But a holding call on the return pushed the ball back to the Hall 20 to start the drive. Boucher-Zazzaro went left with the direct snap and was pushed out at Hall’s 27 after a 53-yard dash. Jones then took it on the same route to the 14. That was followed by a short gain up the middle before Carlson took the direct snap and followed the blocking of Boucher-Zazzaro and Vitor Nogueira around the left side and into the end zone.

“Today we decided to run the ball and were very successful,” Markie said after the win. “We only ran maybe four different running plays.”

Because of the 38-point lead, the game clock moved to running time. On first down it was Noah Suleiman stopping Isaiah Lawrence for a loss, then Lawrence was stopped by a gang of Titan defenders on second down. On third down, Pequita rolled to his left and floated the ball down field to a wide-open Levi Wozny who dropped the ball.

 

A fourth down punt put the ball on the Hall 41-yard line. The Enfield defense stiffened, but on 4th-and-2 it was Boucher-Zazzaro taking the direct snap, going off the left guard, and picking up 30. Carlson then took the snap and went left to inside the 5, and followed it up one play later going left again behind solid blocking to take it in for the score to make it 57-13 after three.

“We have been working on this all week,” Boucher-Zazzaro said of the running scheme. “Today the big boys upfront and Ben (Carlson) got me that space.”

The visiting Eagles had one last drive in their system, led by the running of Pequita. The ball was moved into Hall territory where Sean Dolberry-Brown broke up a long pass over the middle before Pequita found Wozny down the right side as he got behind his defender for the 39- yard hookup score. The final statement of the game came on the PAT when Bobby Biondi used all six-foot, six inches of his frame to block the kick.

“Forget the score, I loved the way we played today,” Markie said after the game.

Game notes

• Boucher-Zazzaro’s final line was 12 carries for 346 yards, four rushing touchdowns, and one passing touchdown for 15 yards.
• Carlson also cracked the 100- yard mark with 101 yards on nine carries with two touchdowns.
• Scher scored one touchdown receiving and another on the blocked punt return.
• Hall came into the game averaging 219 total yards of offense over its opening three games.
• The Hall special teams – in addition to the blocked punt for touchdown, and the fumble recovery on the kickoff – also forced Enfield into a handful of fair catches on kickoffs with Kabakoff delivering consistent high kicks that would leave Enfield with the ball between their own 20- and 30-yard lines to start each drive.
• Both teams are now 1-3 on the season.
• Hall hosts (1-3) Bristol Central on Friday night before getting their bye week.

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