Maloney defense comes up big at the end, Spartans hang on to beat Simsbury
It was a wild one Friday night at Falcon Field but Maloney’s defense ended up making the big plays when it counted against Simsbury and held on to win the CCC Tier 1 high school football game, 21-14.
Simsbury was driving early in the fourth quarter and had reached Maloney’s 19-yard line. Simsbury quarterback Evan Wallace lofted a pass into the end zone that would have brought the Trojans within a point but Rashawn Shelton came up with the interception.
The second big defensive play came from Maloney’s Marquis Ward late in the fourth quarter. On fourth-and-15, Ward sacked Wallace to turn the ball over on downs.
“Defense won us the game at the end there,” Maloney coach Kevin Frederick said. “We bend but we don’t break. They drove down, Shawn Shelton had a great interception in the end zone. That was one of the turning points of the game. That was huge.”
Quarterback Angel Arce, who missed last week’s game against Conard because of a concussion, was 13-for-28 passing for 187 yards and three touchdowns for Maloney (2-1). Joziah Gonzalez caught two touchdown passes for the Spartans, including what turned out to be the game-winner with 2:16 left in the third quarter.
At halftime, Arce had completed 9 of 16 passes for 122 yards, two touchdowns and an interception and the Spartans led 14-7.
Maloney opened the scoring with a 24-yard touchdown pass from Arce to Gonzalez with 2:40 left in the first quarter and the kick by Josh Scaramuzzo was good to give the Spartans a 7-0 lead.
Maloney was making another drive early in the second quarter when Arce was picked off by Simsbury’s John Mairano, who wound up at the Maloney 25. Four plays later Simsbury (1-2) had its first touchdown on a 2-yard run by Mairano and with 9:28 left in the half the score was tied at 7-7.
With 2:05 left, Maloney started another drive at the its own 12. Arce passed his way down the field, connecting with Ian Graham, Tylee Flowers for 28, Gonzalez for 10 and on fourth-and-10 at the Simsbury 43, Arce completed a 19-yard pass to Austin Studley to put Maloney on the Simsbury 24. With 35.7 seconds left in the half Arce then completed a 24-yard pass to Flowers for Maloney’s second touchdown to take a 14-7 lead into halftime.
Simsbury came out firing in the third quarter, marching down the field on an 11-play drive culminating in a 4-yard touchdown pass from Wallace to Isaac Rivera and the score was tied at 14.
Maloney answered with a TD of its own. The Spartans started on their own 17 and Joshua Boganski had five carries to bring the ball to the Simsbury 28. Arce then hit Gonzalez with another touchdown pass with 2:16 left in the third to go up 21-14.
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
