The Cheshire Rams (8-1) will go to the CIAC Class LL playoffs for a second straight year if they can beat Southington (5-4) Thursday morning at Maclary Athletic Complex.
This isn't a replay of last year, when both teams were in the hunt the night Cheshire squeezed by 9-7 in Southington. The Blue Knights, who enjoyed a three-year postseason run from 2005-2008, can only play the role of spoiler, though it's unlikely anyone on the north end of Route 10 is finding motivation hard to come by.
"For our season it's extremely important because for us seniors it's the last game we'll have playing for the Blue," said Shane Duncan, a Southington captain and offensive lineman. "They're our rivals and it's always a big game to look forward to ... To beat Cheshire this year, they're still in the talk for the playoffs, so if we knock them out like they did to us year - it's not like a vengeance thing, but a payback."
The Blue Knights have had nearly two weeks to gear up for Apple Classic XIV. They've been idle since falling 40-20 to unbeaten Conard on Nov. 13.
The Rams, on the other hand, were in action Saturday night, playing a makeup date with West Haven for the Nov. 6 game that was postponed when Cheshire school officials suspended football operations for five days after roughly 40 percent of the team was out sick.
Cheshire returned to full health and remained in playoff contention with an easy 34-0 win over winless Fairfield Prep and then a more challenging one, 27-12, against the Blue Devils.
That's the good news in Ramland. The bad news is, Cheshire has had only four days to get ready for Southington.
"Yeah, absolutely," head coach Mark Ecke replied when asked if the tight window has put his club in a tight spot. "Especially for a team like Southington. They present a myriad of problems. Being a two-platoon team, they have a lot of stuff in on both sides of the football that we need to prepare for and we don't have a lot of time to do it."
Southington head man Bill Mella could commiserate, at least to a point.
"I don't think it gives anyone an advantage in the game," Mella said. "You wish you had a full week to prepare for everybody. Unfortunately, that's not the way it goes. Even that said, they're going to do what they do best and we're going to try to do what we do best. There's a lot emotion, and that kind of stuff pays into this game. The only thing the short week hurts is recuperation. Football is not a game meant to be played every four days."
That, however, is playoff football in Connecticut. Semifinals follow four days on the heels of Thanksgiving and the state finals another four days after that. Even under the new postseason format that kicks in next year, when a full week will separate semis from finals, four-day gaps will remain between Turkey Day, the new quarterfinal round and the semis.
Both the Blue Knights and Rams have been there, Cheshire with the more recent memory. So the Thanksgiving cram session, which began for Cheshire on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. less than 12 hours after the West Haven game, didn't faze Ecke's players.
"It's going to be like this the rest of the season, because if we make the playoffs, we're not going to have a day off until we lose," said senior captain Dan Sweeney, a running back and linebacker. "We have to keep coming after it."
"We just want to play; we want to keep going," junior linebacker Evan Gaudio said. "We don't want the season to end."
Which means the Rams had better not lose Thursday. At 8-2, they will not be playing in December. At 9-1, they will.
With a win, Cheshire will move up from its current fifth spot in Class LL by either passing Staples, should the Westport team lose to Greenwich, or, if Staples wins, by passing Bridgeport Central, which plays winless Harding on Thanksgiving and would lose 10 crucial bonus points from the Staples-Greenwich game (Central needs Greenwich to win).
"This was the goal for us this season. We wanted to get back to the playoffs," said Sweeney. "We're in a great spot right now. We control our own destiny. We win out, it's ours. It's where we want to be."
Cheshire, with the ready-made carrot, has the gravy in sight. Southington, with less to play for, must find a way to bring an equal appetite to the table.
"I think we've just got to stay focused," said Southington senior wide receiver Anthony Florian. "With the season we've had and with our expectations, it's easy for us to lose focus, but we've got to practice hard all week, follow the game plan, listen to what the coaches are saying and just stay focused.
"It would be nice to get the Cup back in Southington," Florian added. "Winning the Cheshire game is always big. No matter what the records are at the end of the season, when we play Cheshire it's a whole different atmosphere. They're probably our biggest rivals, so winning this game would be huge for us."
Thursday is unlikely to see a replay of last year's 9-7 defensive struggle, the lowest scoring Apple Classic ever. (In the past, even the losing team has scored at least two touchdowns.)
This year, both teams are averaging better than 32 points a game behind experienced offensive lines. Both teams continue to run a spread offense, though with the Rams it's more to facilitate the ground game. Cheshire has run for over 2,600 yards while throwing for just over 700.
While the Rams did graduate Walter Camp Player of the Year Billy Ragone, now an Ivy League quarterback at Penn, they have managed to do what they said they'd do at the beginning of the season: get the job done by committee.
Senior QB Greg Palmer has proven a smart and adept field general. He's gone over 1,000 yards rushing and is an accurate passer, either with short stuff to Sweeney and senior captain/receiver Paul Tuscano, or further downfield to rangy seniors Brian DeBisschop and Brian Havlicek.
The reliable Sweeney has 627 rushing yards. Rugged junior Mike Skibicki provides formidable backfield depth.
While Southington has a standout running back in senior Dylan Danko, who's on the verge of a 1,000-yard season, the emergence of junior QB Connor Butkiewicz has put the air back in the Air Raid. Butkiewicz opened his varsity career with a seven-touchdown performance and has gone on to pass for 2,361 yards and 29 TDs.
His leading targets have been Florian, a dynamic catch-and-run threat, and junior Tyler Dube, whose 62 catches rival numbers put up by the best receivers ever to thrive in the Southington spread - Mike Prairie (72 in 1997), Daryl Yarmolovich (67 in 1996), Jon Esmail (67 in 2001) and Ed Reinhard (63 in 1999).
Both of these teams are going to score, which likely makes Thursday a question of who's got the better defense.
Cheshire, led by its Sweeney, Gaudio and the rest of the linebacking corps, was outstanding against the run Saturday in West Haven, but somewhat suspect against the pass. Southington, trying to rebound from the 40 points it yielded to Conard's veer option, has been undermined by injuries, particularly to senior linebacker Jake Rodrigues and senior DB/captain Jon Kelleher.
Mella said Southington, along with finishing in the red zone and not giving up the big strike on defense, is going to need a full 48-minute effort to knock off Cheshire. That's true. Cheshire's lone loss came in Week 4, when Notre Dame-West Haven scored with 13 seconds left to pull out a 40-36 win.
"I think it's going to be a great, great contest," Mella said. "I hope the competition is worthy of spending the morning with us."
To date, without fail, it has.
