Eastern Connecticut Conference Division I members Norwich Free Academy and Fitch will play four games apiece this fall as part of the Connecticut High School Football Alliance, which released its master schedule on Friday.

The alliance, which encompasses five conferences throughout the state — the ECC, Central Connecticut Conference (CCC), Fairfield County Interscholastic Athletic Conference (FCIAC), Southern Connecticut Conference (SCC) and South-West Conference (SWC) — scheduled 100 games in 2020.

Al Carbone, commissioner of the SCC and spokesman for the alliance, said all 21 schools in his conference will have alliance games along with 31 from the CCC, 16 from the FCIAC, 12 from the SWC and six from the ECC. The six ECC teams will play a total of 15 alliance games.

This is the fourth year the alliance has worked to schedule games state-wide, but only the second featuring five of the state's eight conference (the CCC and FCIAC came on board in 2019). The Connecticut Technical Conference, Naugatuck Valley League and Pequot Football Conference have opted not to participate.

East Lyme (three games), CREC (two games), and New London and Montville (one game each) are the other ECC schools to schedule alliance games. CREC — the Capital Region Education Council — joined the ECC last fall. The Colts are a cooperative program with Civic Leadership (Enfield), Aerospace (Windsor) and Metro Learning (Bloomfield), and will play their games at Enfield.

A year ago, seven ECC schools played 20 games as part of the alliance. Two of those schools, CIAC Division III finalist Killingly and ECC Division I champion Griswold, were able to fill their schedules without needing help from the alliance.

NFA, the reigning ECC Division I champion and a Class LL playoff team in 2019, will host Darien of the FCIAC and Shelton of the SCC while visiting Cheshire and Wilbur Cross of the SCC.

Fitch will host E.O. Smith (CCC) and Stratford (SWC) and visit Tolland (CCC) and Fairfield Prep (SCC), while CREC will host Bassick (FCIAC) and visit Lyman Hall (SCC), New London will host Guilford (SCC) and Montville will host East Catholic (CCC).

"The nice thing about it is we don't have to go all over and canvass the state ourselves to find games," said Fitch coach Mike Ellis, who went 2-2 last year with wins over Xavier and Bunnell and losses to Wilton and Notre Dame of West Haven. "In all honestly, I felt all the games we got were pretty fair.

"I told (my) other coaches and our kids, 'If we're ever going to make a run at states, these are the teams we've got to beat.' If we don't beat them, we don't deserve to be (in the playoffs). Last year we  had some long travel, but to get to see different parts of the state and different atmospheres, it was great, and in the end it prepared us very well for our ECC schedule."

Carbone, in a release, said the five conference commissioners met on several occasions to "finalize the participating teams and develop the schedule, incorporating factors as (CIAC) classification, program size, school enrollment and recent program success."

c.banning@theday.com