New London - It's never comfortable for one to rely on someone else to ensure his or her future goals. It's better to be responsible for one's own life.

The New London High School football team was put in that situation when it was beaten by Norwich Free Academy on Thanksgiving, 63-40. The Whalers would've qualified for the CIAC Class M-Large playoffs with a win. Instead, they needed three of four teams across the state to help them out by winning.

The Whalers got all the help they needed, though, and they don't want to blow their second chance at a state title.

"Everybody is thankful to be able to out there and play one, maybe two last games," New London senior quarterback Danny Maranda said.

Tight end/defensive end J. Hunter Roman said: "If we somehow didn't earn our shot at it, then I don't think we would've been given this chance. I think God has put us in a position like this, possibly, so we can make something happen."

The third-seeded Whalers will play at No. 2 Brookfield in Saturday's semifinals at 2 p.m. Rain is forecast for that day and any semifinal that is postponed would be rescheduled for Sunday. The games couldn't start earlier than 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

"They've been through a lot and persevered," New London coach Duane Maranda said. "Although we never made it easy on ourselves, to be able to get to this point we're taking it as a bit of a sign.

"We're going to play with house money here and play open and free and hopefully play the type of football that we're capable of playing."

New London needed help in order to secure a berth, wins from Brookfield, Hartford Capital/Achievement First, Griswold and/or Killingly.

Duane Maranda couldn't sit around waiting for scoring updates on Twitter, so he drove to three games. He went to Brookfield on Friday afternoon, Putnam that night and Hartford's Dillon Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

"On Brookfield's first drive (against Bethel), they had fourth-and-2 at their own 37," Maranda said with a laugh. "And (Brookfield coach Rich Angarano) went for it. I'm looking at one of my coaches in the stands saying, 'this guy is killing me.'"

Roman tuned the whole process out. He relaxed, healed up and enjoyed the holiday weekend with his family.

"I'm a low-key guy," Roman, the Yale-bound senior said. "I don't even have Twitter. I don't mess with all that. … You could sit there and try to find scores every five minutes, but I thought, 'I'm just going to fall back and let everything shake out.'"

The Whalers got more help than they needed as all four teams won. That pushed them past Cheney Tech and made them the third seed out of four teams.

"I didn't like having to depend on other teams to win or lose to get into the playoffs," Danny Maranda said. "That was definitely the downside of losing that game, but I'm blessed to have another game in my senior year."

Roman said: " "It's certainly not the feeling you want when (your future) is no longer in your hands. … I trusted that we'd get some of those wins, though. I felt pretty confident in Capital Prep. I knew they were a good team. I felt very confident in the other teams. Griswold had really come into its own and obviously they knocked off Plainfield, which we should've done earlier, to help ourselves (New London lost 21-17 on Sept. 27), but at least someone else did."

The Whalers (7-3) are two wins away from their top goal, a state title.

"Everyone needs to step up and realize that this is our last shot no matter what," Roman said. "From here on out, if we screw up, we're all done."

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED