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ANSONIA — Sun, blue skies, mild temperatures (heck, feel that little chill walking out the door at 7:45), low humidity: Regardless of this week’s forecast, a little bit of fall was in the air Saturday.

And at Nolan Field, watching Ansonia football players run drills and work on their tackling on the first full day of football practice across the state, that felt plenty appropriate.

“I’m pumped about it. I love the first practice,” senior Machi Ingram said. “To get back to hitting and stuff like that, it gets me back into football.”

The defending CIAC Class S champions took the field a little after 8 a.m.

“The offseason went by quick — some days were quick, some days were long,” senior lineman Brendan Lynch said.

“Every day — we had weekends off, but — every day we got after it lifting, conditioning. We’d go after it in the weight room. It was very competitive, a good atmosphere.”

Last year’s championship, 28-21 over Bloomfield to cap a 13-0 season, was the first in town in six years, the longest Chargers drought this century. The standard is set high for these Ansonia teams.

“We’ve really got to start over. I mean, it’s a brand new season. Last year was a special season, no doubt, but we’ve got to move on,” coach Tom Brockett said.

“We didn’t lose a ton as far as numbers. We’ve got six guys back on both sides. But we lost all-state football players. All those players who graduated are really, really good football players, college football players. So that’s going to be hard to replace.”

The 2022 team had Chris Kaminski behind center handing off to David Cassetti, who ran for over 2,200 yards with blocks from Alex Romanowski and Tracey Ray. All of them have moved on.

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“We’re returning three linemen, which is good,” Lynch said. “The two we lost had big roles in the offense, but most of our backs are back. Shawn Richards, Machi Ingram, Paul Palmer at receiver, trying him at different positions.”

Cassettti and Romanowski were first-teamers on the New Haven Register All-State team. Ray was a Class SS/S all-state pick for the state coaches, who had Cassetti and Romanowski in their all-classes Top 26.

“The players we lost, obviously, were a big help to the team, had big roles on our offense and our defense,” said Ingram, who was an honorable-mention receiver on the New Haven Register All-State team. “I think some of our players are going to step up. I think they’re capable of it.”

Brockett says he likes the skill players’ physicality. They’re working on the offensive line after graduating those two all-staters; Lynch likes the athleticism and mobility Ansonia has on the line.

“Then we’ve got to settle on tailback, which hasn’t been the case here in a number of years,” Brockett said.

He’s not remotely kidding: Cassetti was the eighth different Ansonia running back on the Register All-State team since 2002. That’s no small part of why Ansonia has been among the dominant small schools in the state.

“Expectations are always going to be high around here, always,” Lynch said. “That’s expected from us. It’s not going to change as long as these coaches are here.”

And, as Lynch said, a lot of those coaches have been around for a long time.

“It’s nice to know they’re going to be coming back, that you’re not going to see new faces.”

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NEW BRITAIN—When Bloomfield’s 4th and 10 pass from the 12-yard line was knocked down in the end zone with 18 seconds remaining, a lot of history was made on the Ansonia sideline.

Ansonia won the CIAC Class S championship 28-21 over Bloomfield for the school’s 21st state title as well as giving coach Tom Brockett his 7^th state title and 193rd career win, both marks tying him with the late, legendary Ansonia coach Jack Hunt.

The 21 official CIAC titles are the most for any football program in the state since the playoffs began in 1976.

“I look at me and coach Hunt as one for the program. It’s unbelievable to even be mentioned in the same category as him,” Brockett said. “This is not my record, this is the program’s.”

Ansonia last won a state title in 2016. This was the seventh time Ansonia and Bloomfield played for a state championship. Ansonia now leads the series in championship games 4-3.

“The history we have against this team makes this so special. They are a great team and have great coaches,” Ansonia quarterback Chris Kaminski said. “To come out and win this means so much. It was 3-3 and for us to win round seven means everything to us and to our town.”

Kaminski scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns after the Chargers entered the final quarter down 21-14.

With 9:08 to play he broke free for a 20-yard score, cutting the lead to 21-20. Rather than going for the tie, Ansonia rolled the dice and went for two.

The move paid off as David Cassetti dove in to put Ansonia up 22-21.

After holding Bloomfield on downs, Ansonia moved the ball down to the 23 but was faced with a 4^th and 3. Following a timeout, Kaminski kept the ball on a bootleg to the left, scampering 23 yards for the touchdown.

“I was the only coach on the headset that wanted to run it,” Brockett said. “I didn’t get a chance to tell (Kaminski) to fall down on the 1. We almost paid for that but it worked out.”

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The Chargers 2-point try was unsuccessful, leaving the door open for Bloomfield.

Bloomfield got the ball down to the Ansonia 12-yard line but a 4^th and 10 pass to the corner of the end zone was broken up with :18 left.

“I am so proud of these guys,” Bloomfield coach Ty Outlaw said. “I know it hurts right now but we will bounce back. We are a young team. We could not get out of deep in our own end a few times. We couldn’t figure it out to get out of there. Ansonia does such a great job and has such a great coach. We beat them the last two times so I know he was going to pull out all the stops this time.”

This was Bloomfield's fourth-consecutive trip to the Class S final, but the Warhawks haven't won it since a 25-7 victory over Haddam-Killingworth in 2018.

Ansonia got on the board on the opening drive, capped by a 1-yard quarterback keeper by Kaminski.

After a Bloomfield punt from their own end zone wound up at the 24, Ansonia quickly scored again on a 12-yard pass from running back David Cassetti to Paul Palmer.

Bloomfield answered with a 10-yard touchdown run by Davien Kerr with 1:38 left in the first quarter.

The Warhawks scored again at the start of the second quarter, this time with Kerr running in from 8 yards out. The extra point was blocked leaving it 14-13 Ansonia with 9:35 left in the half.

Bloomfield shocked Ansonia before the half, running a draw to Kerr which he broke 68 yards down to the 2-yard line with :03 left in the half.

As time expired at the half, Darrien Foster ran the ball in from 2-yards out and after a two-point conversion pass, Bloomfield led Ansonia 21-14 at the break.

Player of the Game

David Cassetti, Ansonia: The running back carried the load for the Chargers all game and it was his 2-point conversion putting them ahead in the fourth quarter.

Quotable

“This is amazing,” Cassetti said. “Since the offseason, we wanted Bloomfield and we knew if we were going to play them, we would come out on top. We wanted to go for the win after the touchdown and we all agreed. got no words.”

Ansonia 28, Bloomfield 21

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ANSONIA — For seven minutes Sunday evening, this looked like it might be a shootout of an NVL football game, a back-and-forth show of playmaking offenses trading touchdowns.

Well, Ansonia’s defense and special teams put a stop to the back-and-forth pretty quickly. The Chargers’ offense made it a lot more “forth,” actually

After Holy Cross marched for a touchdown off the opening kickoff, Ansonia, ranked No. 8 in the GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll., shut down the Crusaders for the rest of the game, scored on its next four drives and beat Holy Cross 50-6 at Nolan Field.

“What changed defensively is our energy and how we came out,” said Ansonia junior lineman Ayden Mercer, who had at least a part in three sacks.

“The first drive wasn’t as active on defense, but as the game went along, we started realizing ... certain cadences. We realized, and we locked in for our team.”

After problems with its radio headsets forced Holy Cross to burn a time out before the first play from scrimmage, the Crusaders went 72 yards in seven plays. With those three sacks and a kneel-down costing them 25 yards, they netted only 53 yards the rest of the game.

What changed, coach Tom Brockett said, was “settling into their speed."

"The kid (Drew) Caouette is outstanding as a quarterback. (Marques Campbell) is tough. They give you some problems," Brockett said. "We made a couple of mistakes on first drive, but credit them. They did some good things early.”

Caouette completed his first nine passes, in fact. Campbell finished with seven catches for 95 yards and took a direct snap to punch in the first-drive touchdown from a yard out.

And that was about it. It did not help matters for Holy Cross that Ansonia recovered the kickoff after Machi Ingram (19 carries, 202 yards, four touchdowns) drove the Chargers down for their first score. Quintez Whittle made it 13-6 Ansonia. On the Crusaders’ next play, Mercer got in to sack Caouette, and Jacob Romanowski returned the fumble 20 yards.

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“I realized the tackle was stepping too much,” Mercer said. “I juked him out, swim move, and Big Red almost got a touchdown.”

Holy Cross fell to 4-2. The losses, to NVL blue bloods Ansonia and Naugatuck, are by a combined 92-13. But the Crusaders sit seventh in the Class M points standings with the top eight qualifying for the CIAC playoffs, and none of their four remaining opponents has a winning record.

Ansonia has Class S playoff contenders Oxford and Woodland still on the dance card as well as the annual Thanksgiving showdown with Naugatuck, this year at Nolan Field. The defending champion Chargers, winners of 19 in a row, sit second to Bloomfield in Class S.

Player of the Game

It could be Machi Ingram most weeks – 19 carries, 202 yards, four touchdowns, this feels like a recording – so let’s give a shout to the defense with Ayden Mercer, in on three sacks, the first of which gave the Chargers a short field for their third touchdown in the first quarter.

Going Pink

Ansonia wore pink for cancer awareness and honored Denice Hunt before the game. Hunt, a longtime presence in the town and school communities, is fighting cancer herself. Her late husband, Jack, was Brockett’s predecessor and had the team’s record for coaching wins before Brockett passed him earlier this year.

“The Hunt family has been one of the great families of Ansonia,” Brockett said.

“She’s as classy and as sweet of a lady as you’ll ever find. She’s been a second mother to so many young kids growing up in this community for a long, long time. She loves working in the school system, she loves Ansonia football, and we love her.”

Quotable

“We have to improve our energy level when we come out: 50-6 is still an impressive score, but we need come out more aggressively.” —Ansonia lineman Ayden Mercer

Ansonia 50, Holy Cross 6

ANSONIA — What do you get when you graduate two all-state offensive linemen? For one day, at least, if you’re Ansonia, you get 415 yards on the ground in your opener, and you get senior Machi Ingram three long touchdown runs.

“At the beginning of the year, we had no idea who our tackles were going to be,” center Brendan Lynch said after the defending Class S football champions opened with a 45-13 win over Gilbert/Northwestern/Housatonic on Thursday night at Nolan Field.

“Those two guys stepped up. They’ve been doing a good job in practice. They’ve just got to continue to get better.”

Those two guys for Ansonia, No. 7 in the preseason GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll, are junior Curtis Cenatus on the left, flanking left guard Ayden Mercer, and senior Thyrene Mwese on the right next to sophomore Jacob Romanowski.

“There were some young guys, but they told us they would step up, and they did,” said Ingram, who gained 241 yards on 18 carries. “They put in a great offseason, and that’s what they did.”

Coach Tom Brockett — whose 194 wins broke a tie with his predecessor, Jack Hunt, for the most in school history; he's 194-15 — said it’s still a work in progress replacing Tracy Ray and Alex Romanowski, who’ve gone from being Ansonia teammates to being UMass Dartmouth teammates.

“It took awhile, but they’ve come along,” he said.

Ingram scored three touchdowns. Shawn Richards scored twice on 12 carries with 109 yards. Quintez Whittle picked up 44 yards and a touchdown on three rushes. It was a fine start for a team replacing David Cassetti at running back.

“We have a great backfield. All three running backs are just, I can’t tell you,” Ingram said.

He scored on runs of 30, 50 and 55 yards.

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“Ansonia’s got a big, heavy line. They’ve got some fast backs. We’ve got to learn how to play that stuff a little better,” GNH coach Scott Salius said.

Ty DiVita caught a long pass from Nolan Risedorf to set up his own short touchdown run in the first quarter for the GNH co-op. Aiden Avenia broke free for a 54-yard third-quarter touchdown that cut the Chargers’ lead to 10 points. Ansonia came right back to score, forced a fumble on the kickoff and scored again.

Player of the Game

Ansonia senior Machi Ingram ran for 241 yards and three touchdowns on 18 carries.

Youth movement

GNH has 47 players on its roster, and 38 are freshmen and sophomores.

“It looked like both teams’ first game in the first half,” Salius said. “The second half turned around: Ansonia got it together and we really didn’t. They hit us, and our young team didn’t really respond as much as we wanted them to respond once they started hitting us.

“My takeaway from this game: The freshmen and sophomores got a pretty good experience of what the regular season is going to be going forward.”

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Quotable

“We were still getting yards, first downs. We weren’t getting shut down completely, but that’s not our game. We don’t want to take three plays to get first downs. We want to pound the ball, get in the end zone quick, especially a night like tonight, it’s so hot (90s and humid to start), try to get our guys off the field, get them some blows.” —Ansonia senior lineman Brendan Lynch

ANSONIA 45, GNH 13