New Britain - A lot was made about Southington High School's prolific offense, including quarterback Jasen Rose, who came into Saturday's Class LL-Large division championship game with 42 touchdown passes.

But this night was more about Southington's defense forcing the Norwich Free Academy offense to be, well, not so prolific.

While Southington, the top-ranked team in The Day's top 10 poll and the returning Class LL champion, was racking up the points, the Blue Knights also held NFA (8-3) to a grand total of 98 yards offense, eight yards passing.

Southington won the championship 49-0, leading 30-0 at halftime after getting a 62-yard punt return and an 18-yard field goal in the final 1 minute, 58 seconds of the second quarter, negating any progress the NFA defense might have made in forcing three consecutive Blue Knights punts.

"I thought our defense had glimpses. We had some stops," said NFA coach Jemal Davis, whose team has been to the finals two of the last three seasons but is still looking for its first championship. "But you've got to be able to do something offensively. We weren't able to do it."

NFA, beaten in the playoffs for the second straight season by Southington, had just 39 yards offense in the first half, unable to get much yardage out of its running game which features 2,000-yard rusher Khaleed Exum-Strong at running back and 1,000-yard rusher Jawaun Johnson at quarterback.

Down 14-0 in the second quarter, the Wildcats got their best opportunity to score after a Southington punt netted minus-two yards to give NFA the ball at the opposing 36-yard line.

Exum-Strong ran for six yards on first down, but Johnson was hit for a 4-yard loss on second down. After another loss by Johnson on third down, the quarterback threw a pass to Griffen Gooden in the end zone on fourth-and-10, which was broken up by Southington's Alex Jamele.

It was a bit of foreshadowing, too.

Jamele, a senior wide receiver, caught seven passes for 126 yards and two touchdowns, eclipsing the state's career record of 49 receiving touchdowns set earlier this season by Newtown's Julian Dunn. Jamele also returned four punts for 89 yards, including the 62-yard touchdown, and had an interception on defense.

Rose, meanwhile, was 24-for-31 for 348 yards and five touchdowns, three touchdowns to senior Matt Maxwell.

Southington finished with 495 yards offense.

Exum-Strong finished with 19 carries for 55 yards for NFA and added 10 tackles in his final game. Ramel Pires also had 10 tackles.

The outcome was what Southington (12-0) expected.

Following the missed opportunity by NFA, the Blue Knights scored in four plays to go up 20-0, then tacked on the punt return and field goal before halftime.

"We knew we were going in here going to play our hearts out," said Rose, a junior who made the transition to quarterback this season from tight end. "And when we play our hearts out, there's no one that can stop us."

For NFA's Davis, however, he was anxious to watch the game film and see where his team went wrong.

"We had too many 1-yard gains or tackles for a loss," Davis said. "I want to look at the film and see where we can get better. We kept putting our defense back out there, kept putting our defense back out there. They're going to get tired, we're not going to get to the quarterback and then we're not going to make things happen.

"… If we keep getting here, we're going to win one. We've got to get here to get what it's like. We've got to keep getting here. We're getting there, we're just not there yet."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday