East Hampton-Vinal Tech Gets Ready for Old Saybrook

A little more than four minutes into the game last Saturday, East Hampton-Vinal Tech was behind 12-0 to Cromwell.

Touchdown passes by Anthony Morales to Mike Antonio (21 yards) and Brett Director (55 yards) had the BellHawks reeling.

What was coach Joe Cefaratti thinking?

“I’m thinking they got some great athletes out there that made some great throws and great catches and some of them were Division I plays,” he said. “I’m thinking we got to do a better job of covering and we got to get more pressure on the QB or this is going to be a long day, and we did do that.”

They did, but first his team would need a spark.

There might well be bigger plays for EHVT this season, but for this game, the first game as a varsity team, against a quality opponent, confidence shaken … no play was bigger than the ensuing kickoff.

Steven Hall took the kick and ran it back to Cromwell’s 15-yard line. Suddenly, the BellHawks had life.

“It was big because that turned the tempo of the game a little bit toward our favor,” Cefaratti said. “Being down two touchdowns and all of a sudden we’re back in the game, we’re only down one.”

Three plays later, quarterback Spencer Daly was in the end zone and from there the BellHawks held their own against the Panthers.

Though Cromwell won, 40-24, it was still a successful debut for EHVT. The team made big plays on offense, competed and didn’t quit. That success has carried over to practice this week.

“Very positive and moving forward,” Cefaratti said. “Looking forward to this Friday. We should be ready for Friday night."

That’s when Old Saybrook/Westbrook comes to Palmer Field in Middletown for a 6:30 p.m. game.

Old Saybrook (4-6 last season) has not played this season and will feature a new quarterback in junior Torin Wood.

“We saw their scrimmage tape against East Haven,” Cefaratti said. “They run a variety of schemes offensively. They run some wing-T like us, and they run some I and they run some spreads, so we have to be ready for pretty much everything.”

Being ready at the start will be key for the BellHawks, who were forced to play from behind throughout against Cromwell.

The EHVT defense was exposed early by the Panthers, allowing 32 first-half points, but it settled down after making some adjustments at the half, allowing one second-half touchdown.

“We changed up the rotation a little bit on the defense, on the coverage,” Cefaratti said. “We gave [free safety] Alex Seppa a little more mobility to get to Director’s side if he had to. We changed the coverage up slightly, not much but slightly. We also told [the defense] we were this close to getting to Morales. Another half-step several times … and a couple of times we had him and we didn’t wrap. If we make those plays, he’s not going to get the ball off. If you saw in the second half, we got some sacks. A little more of a surge and a little tweak in the coverage and I think that helped.”

With more than 300 yards of offense, there are fewer concerns with the offense. EHVT ran the ball 41 times, but had some big plays passing, including a 77-yard touchdown pass from Daly to Hall.

“We’re going to use what we think is going to work,” Cefaratti said. “We knew their secondary had some slots we could attack and that’s what we tried to do.”

The other good news from last Saturday is that the BellHawks came out out of the game relatively healthy.

“We came out pretty well,” Cefaratti said. “A couple of little bangs and bruises that ice cured.”