New Britain - Ledyard High School and its high-powered offense was rolling early Saturday afternoon.

JoJo Shumaker had ripped off three strong runs on the Colonels' first drive down to the St. Joseph 22-yard line. It gave the impression that the Colonels would be racing up-and-down the field a lot in the Class M-Small state championshp football game.

Nope.

The Cadets' defense stopped Ledyard at their own 17, one of several drives they stuffed in their red zone.

St. Joseph would go on to score on three successive touchdowns in the first half on the way to an easy 37-7 victory at Willow Brook Park.

It was the Cadets' 12th state title.

"Things weren't working well for us as an offense," Ledyard quarterback Ty Ebdon said. "At halftime, we all discussed that we think St. Joseph knew our calls; knew what we were running. So when we were running our plays, they kind of got a jump on it and overloaded to where our play would be going."

"It hurts," Colonels coach Jim Buonocore said of the loss. "It hurts for all of us."

Ledyard (12-1), ranked sixth in The Day's Top 10 state coaches' poll, came into the final averaging 51.3 points per-game. The Cadets (11-2) beat the Colonels in last year's Class M quarterfinals, 84-49, the highest-scoring game in state history.

"Last year when we played them, we got three days to prepare," St. Joseph's Lars Pedersen said. "When you give us three days, things can be a little tough.

"This time you gave us a week, and when you give us a week to study all the film and practice very hard, we're going to read our keys and we're going to make our adjustments. Bottom line, it came down to that. We knew the play before it was happening."

Shumaker ran 20 times for 105 yards, although nearly half (52) came on his first three runs.

"Our defense is pretty good," St. Joseph coach Joe Della Vecchia said. "We wanted to take away Shumaker on the stretch play. I thought we shut down that pretty well all day."

Ebdon completed 13 of 32 passes for 143 yards, including a 34-yard touchdown to Shumaker. He also threw three interceptions.

"The story of this game is the St. Joseph defense," Buonocore said. "They did a heck of a job on us. They contained JoJo on the perimeter. I thought their secondary tackled very well; probably as good as they've tackled all year in terms of what I've seen on film."

The Colonels came away empty on drives that ended at the Cadets' 17, 13, 14 and 12-yard line.

"Their linebackers, in particular (Cameron) Ryan, did a heck of a job for them," Buonocore said. "Hats off to them. That's a heck of a football team, and they certainly played well on the defensive side of the ball today."

Mufasha Abdul-Basir ran 26 times for 217 yards and two touchdowns for the Cadets. Pedersen added a touchdown catch and ran for another while Marc Mrozek kicked a 28-yard field goal and scored on a 52-yard interception.

St. Joseph was backed up at its own 9-yard line facing a second-and-18 late in the first quarter. The Cadets ran a draw to Abdul-Basir, who dashed through the line and raced for a 91-yard touchdown with 1 minute, 38 seconds left in the quarter.

Pedersen caught a 32-yard touchdown from Babineau to push the Cadets ahead, 14-0, with 7:25 left in the second quarter.

Abdul-Basir struck again with a 31-yard touchdown run to give St. Joseph a 21-0 lead with over four minutes left in the half.

Shumaker took an inside screen pass from Ebdon and took it for a 34-yard touchdown with 1:20 remaining in the half.

"I'm so proud of my guys, Buonocore said "It was a great year; (a) tremendous effort from the beginning to the end. They were just a real fun, fun group of kids. These 48 minutes aren't going to define us."

n.griffen@theday.com

Twitter: @MetalNED