Hounds stay perfect with win over St. Paul

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NAUGATUCK — The Naugatuck Greyhounds stayed perfect Friday with a 48-7 rout of the visiting St. Paul Falcons.

Naugatuck (4-0) was led by a pair of seniors in quarterback Erich Broadrick and wide receiver Reuban Berger, each of whom tallied three scores.

Quarterback Erich Broadrick, pictured here in September, connected with seven recievers for 243 yards.

Broadrick threw for 243 yards on 12-of-17 passing and connected with seven different receivers. He recorded touchdowns of 63 yards to Andrew Cirino, 12 yards to Iman Farimani and 32 yards to Berger.

In addition to his hookup with Broadrick, Berger added a 10-yard touchdown run and an 89-yard kickoff return for a score. On the defensive side of the ball, Berger held the Falcons’ standout receiver Travis Thomas without a catch.

Naugy needed just 22 seconds to get on the board, scoring a touchdown on the first play from scrimmage. The score came when Broadrick rolled out right and then threw back across his body to Cirino, who caught the ball just in front of the line of scrimmage and scampered 63 yards to paydirt. The opening play was something Naugatuck head coach Rob Plasky had been planning to run all week.

“During the week, we game-planned and saw something they were doing on defense where we could take advantage of their ends crashing upfield,” Plasky said. “We wanted to bait them to come and then get it over the top like we did.”

The throw, like many Broadrick made on the night, was right on the money into the hands of his receiver. Broadrick delivered beautiful balls out of the pocket and on the run and scanned the field with great vision.

“What Erich did so well tonight, that he hasn’t done in his whole career, is he got a lot of depth on his sprint out,” Plasky said. “The depth allowed him to buy time and see more of the field and he was hitting number three and four receivers as opposed to our first two. Those backside routs were huge for us tonight and he was hitting them. With more depth you see more.”

Broadrick’s ability to find third or fourth receivers spread out the St. Paul defense and forced the Falcons into man coverage. The attention the others receivers were getting opened up plenty of opportunities for Berger.

“With the other guys we have on this team opponent’s cant just key on Reuben,” Plasky said. “With that being said, there are not too many guys that can stop Berger one-on-one. He does a little bit of everything; he’s a great weapon to have.”

The Hounds limited their penalties, something they failed to do in their previous game, but Plasky said he would still like to see less flags thrown against the Greyhounds.

“The biggest thing that we have to correct is the penalties,” Plasky said. “If we can take care of that category, we can put a full game together. I still say we haven’t played our best game yet. When we stop committing penalties I feel like we have a complete team.”

Naugatuck will be back in action on Friday when they travel to Killingly High School, the Greyhounds’ only trip outside of the Naugatuck Valley League this season.

Check out the Waterbury Republican-American’s video coverage of this game at its Red Zone blog.