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Sports

Ansonia Pours It On Late, Rolls 38-0

Colonels Can't Keep Pace With Chargers, Newsome (364 yards)

One of Ledyard's mantras is that a football game is 48 minutes long. The Colonels were reminded of this the hard way on the big stage.

For nearly three quarters of the Class M state final at Rentschler Field, Ledyard hung tough with Ansonia but discovered the Chargers feature more weapons than the state's single-season touchdown record holder.

Ledyard trailed just 12-0 with 51 seconds left in the third quarter against the state's best offense, "holding" Arkeel Newsome to 171 yards on a pedestrian five yards a carry. Unfortunately for the Colonels, Ansonia found other answers, passing for two touchdowns, the second on 4th-and-5 to lead 18-0.

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Tips of the cap to Ledyard for keeping the game in hand and to Ansonia for showcasing its other weapons. But any chance to scare favored Ansonia vaporized in the fourth quarter when we all saw why the Chargers were here in the first place.

Newsome erupted for 193 fourth-quarter yards and TDs of 50 and 95 yards to finish with 364 in the Chargers' 38-0 victory for the program's 17th state title.

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Why Newsome was still in the 31-0 game to score a 95-yard GTD with 1:47 left is another issue. But Ledyard standout Alex Manwaring, who nearly chased Newsome down on the run, had no problem with it.

"I don't blame them," Manwaring said. "A football game is 48 minutes long. I would have done the same thing."

Dubiously, Manwaring also gained most of his yardage (90 of his 116) very late in the fourth quarter. Ansonia (1-0) held Ledyard (11-2) to 51 offensive yards after three quarters. The Chargers' defense overshadowed a game effort by Ledyard's defense until Newsome broke loose and put the game out of reach.

"Going in down 12-0 after the first half I felt pretty good about where we were," Ledyard coach Jim Buoncore said. "Offensively we never got anything going, which is quite frankly a compliment to Ansonia's defense, which was phenomenal. For the most part we played good defense until late in some series when they converted on third and fourth downs."

This wasn't your typical 38-0 blowout. There was little doubt who would win, but the Colonels deserved a much tigher outcome for what it's worth.

On Ansonia's first drive, Newsome scored from 13-yards out on 4th and 2, for a 6-0 lead. That score stood for the first 12 minutes, suggesting some to say, "Ledyard's up after one, 0-6."

Ansonia upped the lead to 12-0 on Elliott Chudwick's 7-yard TD pass to Raeshawn Finney with 9:01 left in the second on a 3rd-and-goal from the 7.

Then Ledyard got its much needed break. Defensive tackle Josh Lawrence forced a Newsome fumble, which Cal Williams recovered at the Ansonia 32. Slade Baxley almost caught a pass inside the 10, then Ansonia's Finney intercepted John Rainey's pass and ran it back 11 yards before Baxley's TD-saving tackle.

In the third quarter, Ledyard still hung around, stopping an Ansonia drive on linebacker Matt Daggett's interception at the 17. But after a Ledyard three and out, Ansonia drove 57 yards to score on Chudwick's 8-yard pass to Andrew Matos for an 18-0 lead with 45 seconds left in the third.

Ansonia owned the final 12 minutes. Newsome's 50-yard TD with 10:38 left started the avalanche. Ledyard's best chance to score came after Manwaring's 43 yard run and Rainey's 10-yard pass to Baxley put the ball at the 4. A Manwaring loss and incomplete stalled the drive, leading to Newsome's window-dressing 95-yard run with 1:33 to play for this 62nd TD this season.

So, Buonocore fell short in his second Ledyard state title game, but this one doesn't sting as much as the 2007 loss to Brookfield, coming on a 29-yard wobbly field goal with under two minutes to play.

"This team has a lot to be proud of," Buonocore said. "We ran into a great team with a record-setting running back. We just didn't have enough gas in the tank to compete here for 48 minutes."

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