ROCKY HILL - Wethersfield senior quarterback Matt Sanzaro and the Wethersfield football Eagles got the 2014 season off on the right foot with a 17-7 win at neighboring rival Rocky Hill Sept. 12.

       The Eagles’ second drive of the game culminated in a 34-yard field goal by sophomore Austin Stefano, out of the hold of Sanzaro, with 3:39 left in the first quarter. The drive featured a Sanzaro to wide receiver Devon Smith completion that picked up 25 yards, a 36-yard rumble by junior Richard Williams and some tough yardage accumulated by senior running back Andrew Cravero to bring the Eagles into field goal range.

       Sanzaro, who threw for 1,969 yards and 28 touchdowns with only four interceptions in 250 attempts last season, needed just under three minutes to direct the Eagles 73 yards and engineer their first touchdown drive of the season. A completion to Williams, who eluded two Rocky Hill tacklers, covered 55 yards to make it a 10-0 ball game with 4:26 left before halftime.

       Four minutes into the third period, Wethersfield struck again when Sanzaro called his own number on 2&11 from 19 yards out. Stefano’s second of two conversion kicks pushed the Eagles ahead, 17-0.

       The Rocky Hill defense came alive for the final 12 minutes of the game to play shut out football. With the Eagles going for it on 4&8 and the ball at the Terriers’ 15-yard line as the period opened, Mat Wilkowski and Jovan Colon broke through to sack Sanzaro.

       Junior quarterback Ryan Lombardo directed the Terriers to pay dirt late in the game with a 40-yard completion to Ryan LaFrancis that put Rocky Hill on the scoreboard with 2:33 left to play. Freshman Joe Catania booted the first point after of his scholastic career to finish the scoring at 17-7.

       â€�"We were doing a tackle trap and [senior] Dave Sevigny was getting a lot of yards off of it,” Lombardo said of the nine-play, 84-yard scoring drive. â€�"We ran it two plays in a row and it worked great.”

       The Rocky Hill backfield got 80 yards from Sevigny, followed by 50 from sophomore Grant Nieves.

       â€�"Dave Sevigny is a great kid and a hard worker,” said first-year head coach Mark Fritz. â€�"He’s a captain for a reason. He was having a great season last year before he broke his collarbone. Dave’s picking up right where he left off. You can’t ask any more of him.”

       The Terriers had one more crack at the end zone thanks to a stingy defensive effort that had the Eagles running three plays and then punting.

       Rocky Hill’s drive began with Wethersfield flagged for pass interference. A completion to Catania picked up 45 yards for the home team before the Eagles’ Jae-Quan Brown’s interception preserved the 17-7 final score.

       â€�"We’ve got a lot of courage and a lot of character,” Lombardo stated. â€�"We were down 17-0 in the fourth quarter with 11 minutes left. We fumbled and turned the ball over but we came back with a lot of heart. We never put our heads down. We tried our best and that’s what I love about my teammates. We definitely had the effort.

       â€�"Wethersfield is a big rival and we didn’t want to lose. Coach Fritz pumped us up at halftime. He said we have to do our jobs. Our linemen have to step up and our wide outs have to look for the ball earlier.”

       Wethersfield head coach John Campanello thought his team â€�"was a little excited when they came out tonight. I saw some good things and some frustrating things. I’m not really happy with the penalties and a couple of dropped passes we should have had for touchdowns. We need to fix things like that to become a better team.

       â€�"Matt Sanzaro is our leader,” said Campanello. â€�"He carries our team. He’s poised and has very good pocket awareness. He scrambles well and has good vision downfield. Matt makes us run.

       â€�"We had some adversity on offense tonight, but I thought we bounced back. I was really happy with our defense, especially linebackers Andrew Cravero and Richard Williams, being where they had to be. That was a definite plus for us. Our defense got beat on one play, but they did a great job and kept us in the whole game. Rocky Hill runs a lot of misdirection so I thought our defense responded with an outstanding job of reading their keys. That comes from being disciplined. If you start watching the backfield, you get yourself in trouble,” according to Campanello.

       â€�"The first half was a little slow for us,” said Fritz. â€�"We had a lot of kids playing varsity for the first time. We started two freshmen--Joe Catania and Will White --who’ve been working their tails off. I couldn’t be any happier over the way the team responded in the second half. They could’ve quit. They didn’t roll over. They fought and put a touchdown in late and made another run at it. We have a lot to build on, a lot to be happy with, but we still have a lot of work to do.

       â€�"Wethersfield has a lot of good players, starting with quarterback Matt Sanzaro. They’re big, tough kids. This was a good measuring stick of how the season’s going to be and how much better we need to get. Every team we play is going to be tough. We have to come ready to work and have a good week of practice. We need to get better.”

       Next up for Wethersfield is its Sept. 19, 7 p.m. home opener against Middletown, led by senior linebackers Isaiah Thompkins and Josh Broome and senior tailback Dario Highsmith, whose 2,700 yards and 28 TDs earned him 2013 Connecticut Gatorade Player of the Year honors. The Blue Dragons come into the CCC Inter-Division contest with a 1-0 record after four different players scored against East Lyme, including a pair of second quarter five yards runs from Highsmith and Tywan Scarborough’s 60-yard punt return in the third period for 30-0 advantage en route to the 37-12 victory.

       Rocky Hill remains at home on Sept. 19, entertaining the 1-0 Tolland Eagles at 7 p.m. Eddi Mesnil made his four carries count, recording a pair of TDs and 68 yards rushing to lead Tolland to a 28-13 win over visiting Killingly. Rocky Hill will also need to contain Austin Hainey, who rushed for a touchdown and 87 yards on 11 carries and quarterback Cody Ouellette, who passed for 70 yards and a touchdown for the Eagles.