POMPERAUG FOOTBALL
NEWS
10-20-2001
SOUTHBURY — Under other circumstances, this could have been a classic look-ahead
situation for the Pomperaug High football team. Seven days from now the Panthers travel to
New Fairfield
for a game that may decide the Colonial Division championship and, hence, a berth in the
South-West
Conference title game.
But the opponent Friday night was keen division rival
Bethel. It was also Homecoming, so looking
ahead was not a consideration.
Sure enough, Pomperaug beat the Wildcats 24-0 before a
large crowd at 234 Judd Road.
That made the Panthers a 5-1 football team, their best start in Chuck Drury’s five
years as head coach.
They are 3-1 in the division and will remain a game behind New Fairfield, if the Rebels
take care
of business vs. Joel Barlow today.
“No, this was the big one tonight,” Drury said.
“There was no mention of New Fairfield
in practice. We were just looking right at Bethel.”
That manifested itself in another meatgrinder ground
attack for Pomperaug as for the second
straight week the Panthers rushed for over 200 yards. All but four of Pomperaug’s 40
plays
from scrimmage were runs, with the damage coming to 228 yards.
And yet it was a pass play that set the tone for the
evening: a 70-yard scoring bomb from
Bob Kulish to Tim Keegan on the first snap of the game. Pomperaug faked its
bread-and-butter sweep, with Kulish then dropping back finding a wide-open Keegan
with a gorgeous downfield spiral.
“We opened with that play because we figured they
would react to the motion,”
Drury said. “And they did.”
The play is called “sweep-pass.” Drury said he put it in just before the game.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t tell our kids it
was coming,” said Gus Lindine, coach of the 3-3,
2-2 Wildcats. “We said it was Homecoming. They’re going to have a big trick play
the first play.
But I guess it didn’t matter that we told them.”
Lindine insisted that the play did not knock the Wildcats
back on their heels, spread
them out or have anything to do with what happened next. Nonetheless, the Panthers also
scored on their next two possessions en route to a 21-point first quarter.
Pomperaug’s Wing-T paraded 68 yards on 10 plays, the
last of which was Kulish’s
2-yard bootleg for a 14-0 lead. Whereupon the Panthers rode Marc Effren’s punt return
down to the Bethel 34 to Drew Robinson’s 3-yard blast to paydirt.
Robinson, the junior tailback, wound up with 101 yards on
16 carries, with running mates
Ken Fraser adding 57 and 45 respectively. The few times Bethel moved the ball on
Pomperaug’s 4-3 defense, Justin DeRubertis was the perpetrator. The quarterback
amassed
a game-high 132 yards on 26 carries. But the rest of Bethel’s running attack could
manage but 57 yards.
“We didn’t get any field position. We gave the
ball up. They had the ball in our end, and they
moved it well in the first half,” said Lindine, whose club came in on a three-game
winning
streak. “They’re a good football team. And I guess we’re going to have to
get back to
basics and start playing hard again.”
Bethel (3-3, 3-2) 0 0 0 0 — 0
Pomperaug (5-1, 3-1) 21 0 0 3 — 24
First quarter
P — Tim Keegan, 70 pass from Bob Kulish (Keegan kick), 11:22.
P — Kulish, 2 run (Keegan kick), 3:22.
P — Drew Robinson, 3 run (Keegan kick), 0:21.
Fourth quarter
P — Keegan, 27 field goal, 11:13.
Individual statistics
Rushing
BETHEL: Justin DeRubertis 26-132, John Bara 11-43, Steve
Weiss 3-(-1),
Sean Brinkerhoff 4-11, Ron Lienhardt 1-4. TOTALS: 45-189.
POMPERAUG: Bob Kulish 5-25, Ken Fraser 9-57, Drew Robinson 16-101,
James Cangelosi 6-45. TOTALS: 36-228.
Passing
BETHEL: DeRubertis 3-12, 22 yds.
POMPERAUG: Kulish 2-4, 81 yds., 1 TD.
Receiving
BETHEL: Mike DiMeglio 2-12, Jeremy Poklemba 1-10.
POMPERAUG: Tim Keegan 1-70, Paul Noonan 1-11.
