West Hartford’s Conard High School defeated East Hartford on Saturday in the highest-scoring football game in state history.

Sports reporting is sponsored by Keating Agency Insurance

By Paul Palmer

No matter how the Conard Red Wolves football team finishes the season, they have already earned their spot in the state high school football record book. On Saturday, Oct. 4, they beat East Hartford 80-74 – in regulation – becoming the highest total score in a Connecticut state football game, a game Conard nearly fumbled away late in the fourth quarter,

There is even some confusion over the record they broke – not the points in Saturday’s game, but who held the previous record. One source had it at 130 points in 1902 between NFA and Bulkeley-New London as the pre-1930 mark. The post 1930 mark was with 108 scored between Marianapolis Prep and Windham Tech in 1965.

But the CIAC, which oversees high school sports in the state, lists the 2016 game between Waterbury Career and Sacred Heart/Kaynor Tech and its 142 points as the previous record holder. That dethroned the 2013 Class M record game of 133 points between St. Joseph and Ledyard.

“I was thinking, what time is this gonna end,” said longtime Conard head coach Matt Cersosimo about Saturday’s game in East Hartford. His team actually trailed five times in the wild game, including at 13-0 in the first quarter. Cersosimo, a former high school and college player, has seen a lot of football – but never anything likes this game. “It was a sense of relief at the end,” Cersosimo said. “The way it ended with the fumble and our recovery was scary.”

Conard had a total of 664 yards on offense – third-most in school history. Quarterback Brady Cersosimo accounted for 415 of those yards, both running and passing, and seven touchdowns. His 251 yards rushing was – not surprisingly – a career mark, and a school record for a quarterback. Running back Holden Smith also had a big day with 216 yards on just 14 carries.

Trailing 13-0 at 5:56 of the first, Conard managed to run off the next 22 points to take the lead before the Hornets scored to cut it to 22-19 at the end of one. The second quarter started with each side scoring, and then East Hartford’s Curtis Baber returned a kickoff 67 yards for a TD.

The three scores came in the span of 39 seconds and included a Cersosimo 59-yard scoring run and a 47-yard TD pass for East Hartford.

“There were a lot of one-play scores and drives,” said Matt Cersosimo. Conard scored 9 points in the final 24 seconds, first on a safety and then on an 11-yard Cersosimo to Justin Nanayakkara pass to make it Conard 38, East Hartford 32 at the half.

“At halftime we talked about controlling what we could control. We worked to try and get two scores (one before, one after) halftime,” Cersosimo said. His team was listening and actually did one better – getting scores on a Brady Cersosimo 61-yard run, then a 51-yard Graham Lamoreaux INT return made it 52-38.

But that was just the start of the scoring in the third which saw the two teams combine for 42 points (84 in the second half). Entering the fourth it was just an 8-point game at 60-52 in favor of visiting Conard.

The two teams alternated scores on six possessions in the final quarter, with East Hartford cutting the lead to 6 points after a 70-yard kickoff return and two-point conversion with 1:55 to play. East Hartford went for the on-sides kick, but the Red Wolves recovered and just needed to get a first down to run out the clock. But they fumbled the ball on the drive and were saved by a recovery by one of the offensive linemen.

“This game felt like whoever had the ball last was going to win,” said Cersosimo.

Despite the 80 points scored, Cersosimo is working with his staff to have the players on both sides of the ball forget about the game. “We’ve been talking a lot about how to handle the situation the right way. We have to turn the page and move forward as they face a tough South Windsor team at home Friday night. If we are still felling good about it on Friday night, then we have not learned a thing this week,” said the coach.

And it’s not just the offense that needs to put the game behind itself; the defense which surrendered 76 points also has to have a short memory. “We have to build that confidence back up,” Cersosimo said. “At the same time our offense has got to stay grounded after scoring like that.”

Game notes

BOX SCORE:

Conard (2-2): 22 16 22 20 80

East Hartford (0-4): 19 13 20 22 74

• The 664 yards on offense was the most for Conard since a game with Enfield in 2017 (764 yards).
• Declan Flaherty had held the school single game rushing mark for a quarterback with 188. That, too, came against Enfield but one year earlier in 2016.
• Brady Cersosimo completed 12 of 23 passes for 164 yards and a pair of touchdowns to go with his running totals (including five TDs).
• For East Hartford, quarterback Anthony Caravallo went 16-28 for 368 yards and 9 TDs/1 INT
• Wide receiver Isaiah Tripp had five receptions for 200 yards and 4 TD.
• East Hartford had 463 total yards on offense.

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