Ledyard

It kept raining, perhaps as it did for Noah, late Saturday afternoon and nobody was leaving Bill Mignault Field. Not the kids, intensely aware that amid all the hugs and hosannas, many of them would never play another game on their favorite lawn. Not the parents, whose phones were sucking battery life, snapping as many photos as possible, raindrops shrain-drops.

This is where high school sports beats all sometimes. The unwitting stage for raw, real, cut-to-the-bone emotion, playing out in a December rainstorm. Next week could wait. This was a moment. A real moment with seemingly all the people and things they cared about on the same patch of real estate, muddied and wet and wonderful.

It turns out that public address announcer Don MacKenzie provided some foreshadowing before the game when he played "It's Raining Men" by the Weather Girls. The end of the happy day, what would be Ledyard 54, Wolcott 7 in the state high school football semifinals, was found in the first lyric of the song:

It's raining men, Hallelujah.

Except that perhaps the emotions of the day necessitated an extra comma: It's raining, men … Hallelujah!

That's how they felt. Their last act on their home field was abject perfection, albeit wet perfection, summarized by one word that encapsulated how everybody felt at the end: Hallelujah.

Maybe the best snapshot belonged to senior running back JoJo Shumaker, who rained on Wolcott like hailstones. Three-hundred, forty-three yards and five touchdowns, stopped only by the officials signaling "touchdown," a counterproductive strategy in the extreme. Yet there was Shumaker, while many of his teammates celebrated, sobbing.

"It's kind of tough to think about," Shumaker was saying later, still quite wistful, battling the conflicting emotions. Joy over victory. Sadness that the final chapter is here.

"It speaks volumes about him as a person and what this program means to him," Ledyard coach Jim Buonocore said. "People outside of our program don't realize how close knit of a team this really is. The bonds we have and the way we care about each other on and off the field."

It begins and ends with the head coach, who has a sign in the office that reads, "There is no offseason." Even Buonocore, his mind awash in details, details, details, was left to wonder about the finality of the moment.

"It's been an emotional week," he said. "Every time you talk to the kids: is it the last time? Last night, the final speech, the team dinner. Is it the last time? You don't know. It's very important they understand how much they mean to me as a group. And hopefully how much I mean to them as an individual. We care deeply about each other. JoJo showed his emotions, but I think a lot of people in that locker room feel the same way. To do this together … it's been a fun, fun season."

And it continues. The Colonels play in perhaps the feature game of the eight championship games. They get another crack at mighty St. Joseph of Trumbull, a team that dropped 84 points on them in last season's playoffs. Happily, though, the Ledyard kids didn't let St. Joe's define the day. This is St. Joe's week now. But it was a day to go out on your home field the right way.

They conspired with assistant coach Jose "Pasta" Sanabria to douse Buonocore with the water jug. They jumped around, chanted and sang when it was over. They didn't want to leave their home field. But they left it with an exclamation point.

As real as it gets.

"When you can take a group of young men to the pinnacle of their sport," Buonocore said, "and give them an opportunity to call themselves a state champion, it's a tremendous feeling. Certainly, we have a big task in front of us. St. Joe's is a terrific team."

Now they get to spend another week together.

That's almost better than winning itself.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius