After an opening-night loss, Staples football coach Adam Behrends talked about turnovers, talked about “self-inflicted mistakes,” talked about just needing to tighten some things up.
The Wreckers tightened up plenty over the next three months and a day. They never lost again. On Saturday, they beat the team that beat them opening night.
For the second time, Staples is the season-ending No. 1 team in the GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll.
“I’d like to think” his team was deserving of the No. 1 ranking, Behrends said Saturday after Staples won Class LL with a 21-20 win over West Haven. “These kids have earned it. The one loss we did have, they avenged that on the biggest stage. Yeah, I think these kids deserve it.”
The Wreckers beat then-No. 2 Southington in Week 3, defeated eventual Class MM runner-up Wilton in Week 6 and knocked off then-No. 1 and unbeaten Greenwich on Thanksgiving. They avenged last year’s playoff loss to Fairfield Prep in the Class LL quarterfinals, blew out Southington in the semifinals and won a classic against West Haven.
Staples earned 21 out of 26 first-place votes in the poll.
“(No. 1) would show lot of payoff for a lot of really tough kids and a lot of really tough coaches that hung in through some really tough times to become champions,” Behrends said.
Staples was ranked No. 1 in the then-New Haven Register poll in 1975, the last season before the CIAC began playoff football. Reaching four consecutive finals and winning three titles 2002-05, it was ranked fourth, sixth, fourth and second to end the seasons. Since then, it had finished as high as third, when it was Class LL runner-up in 2009.
The Wreckers were ranked 10th at the end of last season after going into the playoffs sixth.
Class L champion finished second in the poll, and Class MM champ North Haven was third. New Canaan, like Staples, lost its opener to an SCC team – Shelton, for the Rams – and won its last 12. North Haven went 11-1 on the field, losing to – ahem – Shelton. The Nighthawks also forfeited their Week 1 game to Darien as a school system investigation began into student behavior; officials resumed the season the next week.
West Haven finished fourth after its one-point loss to Staples. The Blue Devils knocked off Greenwich in the semifinals; the Cardinals dropped from first before Thanksgiving to third before the playoffs to sixth in the end. In between at fifth was Maloney, which lost by two to Greenwich in Week 3 on a last-second field goal and didn’t lose again until losing to New Canaan in the Class L semifinals on a last-second field goal.
Darien, which surged from the eighth seed in Class L to reach the final and lead New Canaan in the fourth quarter, was seventh. Class M champion Hand, which won 12 in a row after opening with a loss to Bunnell, was eighth.
Class MM runner-up Wilton took seventh, and Class S champ Bloomfield was 10th, a little ahead of Windsor, the top seed in Class MM, who beat Bloomfield in Week 11.
First-place votes in parentheses and points tabulated on a 30-28-26-24-22-20-18-16-14-12-11-10-9-8-7 basis. Records through Sunday.
DROPPED OUT: Windsor (6), Cheshire (8), Naugatuck (9).
OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: Windsor (10-2) 284; Masuk (9-3) 185; Newtown (9-3) 179; Cheshire (8-3) 126; Barlow (9-4) 125; Shelton (7-4) 124; Naugatuck (10-1) 86; Rockville (11-2) 78; Cromwell/Portland (10-3) 59; Watertown (7-6) 41; Ansonia (10-2) 34; Fairfield Prep (4-7) 25; Southington (7-5) 14; Holy Cross (8-4) 8; Fitch (9-2) 7; Stamford (7-4) 7.
THE FOLLOWING VOTED: Will Aldam, GameTimeCT; Nkwa Asonye, WFSB-3; Serenity Bishop, Bristol Press; Sean Patrick Bowley, GameTimeCT; Bryant Carpenter, Record-Journal; Gerry deSimas Jr., Collinsville Press; Justin DeVellis, News 12 Connecticut; Mike DiMauro, The Day of New London; Erik Dobratz, WTNH-8; Scott Ericson, GameTimeCT; Michael Fornabaio, GameTimeCT; Rob Gullo, New Britain Herald; Mark Jaffee, Republican-American of Waterbury; Tim Jensen, Patch Media Corp.; Jonah Karp, Fox61; Greg Lederer, Cheshire Herald; Myer Lee, GameTimeCT; Gabby Lucivero, NBC CT; Mike Madera, Walter Camp Football Foundation; Joe Morelli, GameTimeCT; Pete Paguaga, GameTimeCT; Dave Phillips, GameTimeCT correspondent; Lori Riley, Hartford Courant; Dave Ruden, The Ruden Report; Dave Stewart, GameTimeCT; Jimmy Zanor, Norwich Bulletin.
Poll compiled by Michael Fornabaio.
CreditsReporting by Michael Fornabaio. Editing by Pete Paguaga and Sean Patrick Bowley. Production by Derek Turner. by Follow GameTimeCT on Twitter and Instagram. Powered by the Hearst Newspapers DevHub.
Originally published on Dec. 11, 2023
2023-12-11 17:30:00
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