Colchester — All apologies to the rest of the Eastern Connecticut Conference, but three football teams have ruled the league over the last several years — Ledyard, New London and Norwich Free Academy.

Bacon Academy is close to usurping that trio’s power this season.

The Bobcats took a big lead against Ledyard on Saturday and hung on late in a 25-22 ECC Large Division win, their second milestone win in as many weeks.

Bacon has beaten New London (34-18) and the Colonels in eight days.

To be the best, you have to beat the best.

“There’s one more powerhouse in the ECC that we want to beat (NFA),” Bobcats quarterback Sean Kelly said. “That’s who we marked off before the season. If we want to make the playoffs, then we’ve got to beat them (Ledyard, New London and NFA).”

Bacon (3-0, 3-0) is just one of three teams still unbeaten in the ECC after three weeks, joining NFA (2-0) and Windham (3-0). The Bobcats play at NFA on Nov. 6, should you be so rash to plan ahead.

It was a maddening loss for Ledyard (2-1, 0-1), starting with its defense being burned twice for long touchdowns.

The Colonels had just scored a touchdown when Bacon’s Dan Narlock got way behind his defender. He caught a 60-yard touchdown pass with more than 10 minutes left in the first half to cut the Bobcats’ deficit to 8-6.

Tyler Bolden caught a screen pass, slipped two defenders, and raced 70 yards down Bacon’s sideline to put them ahead, 19-8, just 1:06 into the second half.

“We didn’t play good football today,” Ledyard coach Jim Buonocore said. “We didn’t defend well. We didn’t tackle well.”

The Colonels were also flagged 10 times, several of which were motion penalties. Two were for pass interference.

“Until today, penalties were never an issue,” Buonocore said. “I certainly have a lot of questions going into the film (room) and want to see some of these a little bit closer. I was not happy with all these yellow flags that were on the ground. I certainly didn’t agree with the majority of them.”

Kelly completed 17 of 23 passes for 349 yards and three touchdowns for Bacon. He was also flushed from the pocket and scrambled for a 6-yard touchdown to give the Bobcats a 13-8 lead with 1:37 left in the first half.

“Good player,” Buonocore said. “(Bacon is) very talented. They have size. They have speed. They have a quarterback with some great savvy and moxie. He made some big plays for them in terms of extending the play.

"That’s a good football team. They played well.”

Manny Deshields-Sanabria ran 20 times for 133 yards for Ledyard and Ty Ebdon completed 15 of 23 passes for 143 yards.

Max Ebdon scored on a 10-yard run for the Colonels.

Ledyard trailed by 17 points with 6:20 remaining when Deshields-Sanabria scored on a 9-yard run. It cut Bacon’s lead to 25-15.

The Colonels stopped the Bobcats on fourth-and-1 at the Ledyard 42 with over four minutes left. Ebdon threw a 17-yard touchdown to Justin Carter with 2:44 remaining to get the Colonels within three points.

Ledyard had one last possession with 24 seconds left, but couldn’t score.

“It was crazy (at the end),” Kelly said, “(but) I knew our defense was going to step up and they were going to hold them.

“Shout out to Ledyard. They played hard. They fought the whole second half. They played a great second half. It was a great game to play.”

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED