By Bryant Carpenter
Record-Journal staff
SOUTHINGTON - Just about everything that could go wrong did for Southington in the first half Friday night against Simsbury.
The Blue Knights lost two fumbles deep in their own end. They gave up a safety. They couldn't stop Simsbury's veer option and, on special teams, had a punt blow up on a low snap.
Yet at halftime the Knights trailed by only 29-20, and by scoring on their first possession after the break and throwing up a stone wall with defensive adjustments, were poised to reverse the bad mojo.
Problem was, the Simsbury defense bent, but didn't break, and with two separate fourth-down stops at their own 10-yard line the Trojans held on for a 29-26 victory at Fontana Field, their first ever against Southington.
"We knew we had to score at least 30 points and stop their passing game. They're a well-coached team and this was a big win for us," said Simsbury head coach Jeff Osborne. "We call it a program victory."
The victory enabled Simsbury to bounce back from last week's loss to New Britain and improve to 6-1 overall and 5-1 in CCC Division I. The Trojans also remained firmly in contention in Class L.
Southington (4-3, 3-3) took an almost-certain fatal hit in Class LL in suffering its third loss by three points. It's cruel math: Nine points are the difference between 4-3 and perhaps 7-0.
"Three points again?" said Southington head coach Bill Mella with a long rueful laugh. "I like the way the kids are competing. While you always want to give credit to your opponents, I really feel if we can fix some things, those outcomes would be very different."
Against Simsbury, the Knights got 196 yards of rushing from Dylan Danko and 306 yards of passing from Connor Butkiewicz, who completed 25 of 40 and hit for four touchdowns. The last was a 17-yarder to Tyler Dube that cut the gap to 29-26 early in the third quarter.
But the Simsbury secondary made two big plays on Southington's junior QB after that to preserve the lead. Both were on fourth-down passes at the 10. The first was knocked down in the end zone midway through the third quarter. The second was picked off by Kevin Kucinskas with 6:40 to play.
From there, Simsbury was finally able to generate some second-half offense, eating all but 50 seconds off the clock and reversing field position down to the Southington 9.
The Blue Knights, after a fourth-down hold of their own, had one last chance. But penalties got them off on the wrong foot and Simsbury's defense limited Butkiewicz to short passes underneath. The clock ran out with a hook-and-ladder play failing to materialize at the Southington 25.
"They fought hard to the last tick, that's all you can ask," Mella said.
Southington's defense, missing the valuable services of inside linebacker Jake Rodrigues (ankle injury), allowed Simsbury's deceptive veer offense 263 yards in the first half, but clamped down and allowed just 71 in the second. Fullback Connely Cummings finished with 127 yards and three touchdowns. Quarterback Kyle Decker had 113 and 1 TD.
"The wonderful thing about coaching and having players like I do, you can make adjustments, you can try and find different things that will make us successful," said Mella. "I'm proud of our kids because they can handle adjustments, they can make them work, and that was evident in the second half."
The game opened with a flurry of fumbles deep in Southington territory: Danko coughed up the opening kickoff, Decker fumbled on Simsbury's first play, Southington gave it back three plays later and Decker fumbled stretching the ball into the end zone.
Four turnovers in just over three minutes: A bizarre intro for a game that, for a while, turned into a showcase of contrasting offenses and resolved itself with defense.
Simsbury 29, Southington 26
At Fontana Field
Simsbury      07-22-00-00-29
Southington      12-08-06-00-26
First Quarter
South---Tyler Dube 6 pass from Connor Butkiewicz (kick blocked) 6:38
Sims-Connely Cummings 2 run (James Poggio kick) 1:58
South-Anthony Florian 73 pass from Butkiewicz (pass failed) 1:42
Second Quarter
Sims-Safety. Dylan Danko tackled in end zone. 9:20
Sims-Kyle Decker 9 run (Poggio kick) 6:00
Sims-Cummings 23 run (Poggio kick) 4:30
South-Mike Rhodd 24 pass from Butkiewicz (Dube pass from Butkiewicz) 1:57
Sims-Cummings 4 run (kick failed) 0:54
Third Quarter
South-Dube 17 pass from Butkiewicz (pass failed) 8:43