The West Haven football team hosted the Hillhouse Academics on Saturday night at Ken Strong Stadium. The Academics’ opening drive was stopped at the West Haven four-yard line when Jordan Berrios intercepted a pass with 6:55 left in the first quarter. The Blue Devils proceeded to make a 96-yard drive down the field with an effective running game and capped off the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run by Justin Medina and a two-point conversion by Tylen Jennette to give the Westies an 8-0 lead with 36 seconds left in the first quarter.
On the Academics’ next possession, the West Haven defense forced Hillhouse to punt and took advantage of a snap that sailed over the punter’s head and gave the Westies the ball on the Hillhouse 21-yard line. The Blue Devils increased the lead to 14-0 when Juan Gutierrez ran the ball in from six yards out with 10:20 left in the half.
On the next Hillhouse possession, the Westies were the beneficiaries of another mishandled snap on a punt to give them the ball on the Academics’ 34-yard line with just under seven minutes left in the half. Jordan Berrios finished the drive with a 1-yard TD run with 3:11 left in the half and West Haven took a 20-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
The Westies appeared to be headed into the end zone again when they drove down the field to open the second half but were stopped at the goal line on fourth down with 5:10 left in the third quarter. West Haven was able to extend their lead to 28-0 with 7:49 left in the game on a Jordan Berrios 1-yard touchdown run and a Jaden Grant two-point conversion.
The Academics looked like they were going to finally get on the board as time ran down but, the West Haven defense came up big again when Demerick Blackford leapt in the air and pulled down an interception at the Westies’ one-yard line with 1:15 left in the game to seal the 28-0 victory.
This week, the Blue Devils travel to Middletown to take on the Xavier Falcons on Friday at 7.
The CIAC playoffs got under way this week when the girls soccer team traveled to Woodbridge to play the Amity Spartans on Monday. Later the same day, the girls’ volleyball team also played in the opening round of the playoffs against the Spartans. The boys’ soccer team headed to West Hartford on Tuesday afternoon to face the two-seeded Warriors.