"I think the guys feel good about finally putting two together," Southington coach Bill Mella said with a laugh. "It's been a while."
Southington's offense continually sputtered during the afternoon, turning the ball over three times, but then would break a big play to put more distance between itself and Weaver.
The Blue Knights' defense, in contrast, forced four turnovers, harassed Weaver quarterback Jaquan Forde (6-for-16, one TD, one interception, 78 yards) throughout the day, and scored 10 points of its own on two safeties and a fumble recovery by Johnny Gradante in the end zone.
After Weaver (0-5, 0-4 CCC Div. III) recovered its squib kick on the opening kickoff and then turned the ball over on downs at the Southington 33, the Blue Knights struck quickly. On its second play, Southington (3-2, 2-2 CCC Div. I) scored on a 67-yard pass from Connor Butkiewicz to Anthony Florian on a crossing pattern with 6:43 left in the first quarter.
"Actually (wide receiver) Kyle Lentini made some really good blocks," said Florian (four catches, 153 yards, three TDs). "I followed him, followed the receivers making blocks downfield, made a few cuts and it just worked out."
But Butkiewicz (7-for-20, 200 yards, one interception) was off the mark early and had four passes dropped. After completing a 10-yard pass to Lentini on Southington 's next possession, nine of Butkiewicz's next 10 passes, seven in a row, were incompletions.
Southington 's defense scored next on Weaver's third possession when Joe Pesce tackled Forde in the end zone on a first-and-10 at the Weaver 6 with 2:54 left in the first quarter for a 9-0 lead.
Southington scored two more times in the first half on Dylan Danko runs of 4 and 14 yards to open a 23-0 lead at halftime.
Meanwhile Weaver hurt itself with turnovers and its kicking game. The free kick after the safety set up the Knights at the Weaver 30, leading to Danko's first TD, and a punt that netted 9 yards put Southington on Weaver's 27, leading to Danko's second score.
"I'm thrilled how the (defense) came together and approached this week and decided that we were going to try and make a mark and get better ourselves," Mella said. "We made it more about our team than who we were playing."
Florian's second TD came with 5:27 left in the third on a 28-yarder from Butkiewicz, and his third was a 34-yard in-pattern on which Butkiewicz led him perfectly and Florian simply outsprinted Weaver's secondary with 10:18 left in the game.
"We had a couple of big plays thanks to (Florian) but you've got to remember that (Weaver) they work hard every day, too, and they did some nice things, and we did struggle on offense," Mella said. "Thankfully we were able to put some big plays in and we've got some talented young men to give the rock to."
Weaver scored on the last play of the game when Forde hooked up with Carlos Colon for a 29-yard TD pass up the left sideline. Randal Graham scored the two-point conversion on a run.
Weaver is a young team that lost 18 of 25 players to graduation coming into the season, but coach Arnold Kennedy saw some positives in the rout.
"We got a little more push on both lines today," Kennedy said. "They gained a little confidence. We've got to cut back on our turnovers and our bad punting and it could have been a lot closer."
