MIDDLETOWN – There are plenty of words that a veteran football coach like Xavier High School’s Sean Marinan would like to hear his starting quarterback say in the season opener. It’s safe to say that “hyper” would be pretty far down the list.
However, Maxwell Murphy summarized the forgettable opening quarter perfectly for the host Falcons. Once the nervous energy went away, Xavier took control en route to a 27-2 win over East Haven on Friday night.
“We started off a little hyper,” Murphy said. “I was hyper in the first quarter, but we responded really well. Our defense looked great and I think our offense responded well.”
Advertisement
Murphy threw two of his three touchdown passes in the second quarter to get the Falcons going. The defense took care of the rest.
East Haven scored first when a high snap on a punt by Xavier sailed out of the end zone. It was still a 2-0 game before Murphy connected with Eli Halvorsen on a 17-yard touchdown pass.
After East Haven picked up just two yards on its next possession, Matthew Roby’s 20-yard run helped set up Murphy’s 9-yard scoring pass to Evan McKee. Roby, who rushed eight times for 109 yards, added a 14-yard run late in the second quarter to push the lead to 20-2.
Milo Chandler had a 26-yard touchdown catch on Xavier’s first drive of the second half, making it 27-2.
Advertisement
The only question that remained was whether East Haven’s offense would get into the end zone. The Yellowjackets had a chance after quarterback Anthony Fowler connected with Kayden Staron on a 40-yard completion. A sack by Xavier’s Lonzell Barnes and two incomplete passes kept the Yellowjackets from scoring.
“We made a lot of mistakes and they are a good team, they are at a different level than we are,” East Haven coach Scott Benoit said. “We hung in there early. We couldn’t get anything going offensively, we were playing defense way too long. They did a great job. They played great defense as I knew they would because I know Sean has always been a good defensive coach. We will get better, we will improve. We have a lot of kids who can play.”
Halvorsen led Xavier with seven tackles. Halvorsen, Jacob Barnhart, Joey Zappulla and Liam Lefebvre each had two tackles for loss. Lefebvre had a fumble recovery to set up Xavier’s third touchdown.
“We settled down and started playing football,” Marinan said. “We did better, but we still had periods in the game where we shot ourselves in the foot. It was one dumb thing after another, which gave them a lot.”
Advertisement
Charles Fowler and Lucien Moran had interceptions for East Haven. Charles Bussert finished with four tackles.
Player of the game
The quarterback had three touchdown passes, two coming in the second quarter.
Quotable
“Hopefully we got the jitters out. We have inexperienced guys in new positions, trying to find the right mix.” – Xavier coach Sean Marinan.
Xavier 27, East Haven 2
EAST HAVEN 2 0 0 0- 2
XAVIER 0 20 7 0-27
E-Safety, ball snapped out of end zone
X-Eli Halvorsen 17 pass from Maxwell Murphy (kick failed)
X-Evan McKee 9 pass from Murphy (CJ Morello kick)
X-Matthew Roby 14 run (Morello kick)
X-Milo Chandler 26 pass from Murphy (Morello kick)
Sign up for the Connecticut Briefing from CT Insider. Get the biggest headlines of the day from our network of journalists around the state.
This article originally published at Xavier football turns opening-game jitters into a convincing win over East Haven.
