Ledyard makes a little history
Groton - The in-game celebrations were relatively muted, very business-as-usual type stuff.
But once the final horn sounded, the postgame celebration was much more exuberant. That's because the season the Ledyard football team turned in after Thursday's 55-7 win over Fitch was anything but run of the mill.
The Colonels became the first team in school history to go 11-0 during the regular season, and unless the CIAC changes the rules that will limit teams to 10 games beginning next year, they will be the only Ledyard team to ever go 11-0.
"It means everything," said quarterback Ty Ebdon, who completed 6 of 7 passes for 183 yards and three touchdowns while playing just the first half. "Ledyard has had 10-0 seasons before (in 1984 and 1993), but 11-0 ... with these guys ... is pretty special. To work so hard for so long like we've done, it's really just a great accomplishment and an incredible thing to know that no one has done it before."
Up next for Ledyard is a semifinal home game against either Wolcott or the Ellington/Somers cooperative program in the Class M-Small division on Saturday, Dec. 6. Ledyard will be the top seed while Wolcott and Ellington/Somers play makeup games on Saturday that will determine the Nos. 3 and 4 seeds. St. Joseph, which beat Ledyard in last year's playoffs and went on to win the Class M title, is the No. 2 seed.
The CIAC will officially release the matchups on Sunday.
Ledyard needed just four plays and exactly one minute to get on the scoreboard. A 40-yard run on the first play and a facemask penalty on the third play put the Colonels on the Fitch 11, and Ebdon then ran it untouched up the middle to get things going.
The Falcons (0-11) turned it over on their first possession, and Ledyard responded by scoring on its first play, a 38-yard scoring strike from Ebdon to JoJo Shumaker. Just like that, Ledyard was up 14-0 and not even two minutes had ticked off the clock.
"It is so difficult - so difficult - to go undefeated," Colonels coach Jim Buonocore said. "Things have to go your way. You have to be injury-free, kids have to buy in. These kids bought in from Day 1. To say they were perfect is special. You'll never be able to take that away from them.
"It's safe to say this will be the only 11-0 team in the tradition-rich, storied history of Ledyard. These guys are going down in the history books. They'll take this to their grave. It's very special for them.
"It wasn't easy. People on the outside can look at it and say, 'Well, you won all those games by so many points.' It wasn't easy to do that. Sometimes we made it look easy but we did that because of hard work and dedication."
Ledyard went up 20-0 on Shumaker's 58-yard scoring run after a long Fitch drive stalled at the Ledyard 8. The Falcons got their score midway through the second quarter when quarterback Robert Duncan finished off another long drive (15 plays, 60 yards) with a 1-yard run.
But Ledyard put any doubts to rest by scoring four more times on just seven snaps before the half. A 41-yard pass from Ebdon to Phyllip Thomas set up Leo Clinton's 5-yard run, Shumaker had a 7-yard run and a 52-yard reception for scores, and Thomas hauled in a 35-yard pass.
"They have plenty of weapons they can go to," Fitch coach Jordan Panucci said. "When you say all those names, it speaks highly of what they're capable of."
"Our first goal was to win the ECC division and hang up a banner," said Shumaker, who finished with 178 total yards and four touchdowns on six touches. "The next goal was to go undefeated and be perfect. We are one step closer to reaching all of our goals.
"Now we focus on winning a state championship. "
Ledyard finished the scoring on its first play of the second half, a 50-yard run by backup quarterback Max Ebdon.
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