Norwalk running back Chris Hines was voted BlueStreak Sports Training’s Fairfield County Player of the Week for his performance against Bridgeport Central.

Hines carried 42 times for 279 yards and four touchdowns in the Bears’ 39-26 win.

The co-runner-ups played against each other in Week Four: Bobby Wood, QB, New Fairfield (21-34-274 passing and 3 touchdowns, 9-85 rushing and 2 touchdowns) and Brandon Farrell, RB/DB, Bethel (15 carries 242 yards 3 TDs (66, 50, and 55 yards) 6 tackles, 1 sack).

Other nominees included: Vinnie Cannon, QB, Wilton; Mark Harrison, WR, Bunnell; Donnohue Lovelace, DT, St. Joseph; Mike McKnight, RB, Ridgefield; Kurt Nacewicz, WR, Newtown; Kevin Pierre-Louis, RB-LB, King, and Justin Warzhoa, QB, Greenwich.

Players are nominated both by football coaches representing teams in Fairfield County. A mimimum of five nominees from a weekly fan poll are also included on a ballot, and the Player of the Week is then selected by members of the Fairfield County sports media community.

The award is presented by the FCIAC Football Blog.

The following media members voted: The following media members voted: Bill Bloxsom (Hersam-Acorn Newspapers), Zachary Eastright (WSTC-AM/WNLK-AM), Dan Farrand (News-Times), Scott Ferrari (Greenwich Citizen), Jason A. Intrieri (FCIAC Football Blog Live), John Nash (The Stamford Times), Ken Morse (Hersam-Acorn Newspapers), Matt Norlander (New Canaan News-Review), Mike Quick (MSG Plus), Dave Ruden (Stamford Advocate), Eliot Schickler (Westport News), Paul Silverfarb (Greenwich Post), Dave Stewart (New Canaan Advertiser), Michael Suppe (Hersam-Acorn Newspapers).

Popularity: 21% [?]

By Tim Parry

Smart bunch of readers at the FCIAC Football Blog: 85% of them felt St. Joseph would take care of business against Trinity Catholic.

And that’s what St. Joseph did. The Hogs improved to 4-0 with a convincing 40-7 win yesterday over the Crusaders.

The big difference: St. Joseph was able to shut down Trinity Catholic fullback Nick Cortese, who ran for more than 200 yards in each of his last two games. And Trinity Catholic was unable to adapt.

“They came out and put a lot of guys inside. You can’t come out with one play and say this is what we’re going,” Trinity Catholic head coach Bryan Fox said. “You have to look at what they are doing and try to counter that. We have to be able to do that if we want to be successful.”

And the Hogs offense also came up with the big plays. Sophomore quarterback Joe Della Vecchia hit Tyler Matakevich for touchdowns of 56 and three yards, and Sam Ditchkus for a 32-yard score. Ditchkus and Matt Marini scored on the ground, too.

And late in the fourth quarter, Hogs defensive tackle Donnohue Lovelace intercepted a Steve Scalero pass at the line of scrimmage and dazzled the crowd with a 62-yard tackle-breaking return for a touchdown.

“We’ve had a lot of distractions this week, with SATs and homecoming,” St. Joseph head coach Joe Della Vecchia said. “I’m so proud of what they did to fight off those distractions and do what they did.”

So what does this mean for each team? Trinity Catholic is going back to the drawing board, and St. Joseph, at 4-0, will try not to look ahead.

“Mistakes are going to kill you. We’ve got to execute, and right now we’re not executing,” Fox said. “The blocking, the tackling, the throwing, the catching, the very beginnings of a football program are not there, so we’ve got to go back to square one.”

“We’ve got a long way to go, we’ve only played four games and we’ve got one heck of a schedule coming up,” Della Vecchia said. “Every team in our league is good. There’s no such thing as a bye week, there’s no way we can take it easy against anyone.”

Waking up the Echos: Did Della Vecchia have anything special to talk about this week? How about the 1978 Class S state championship game. Trinity Catholic (then Stamford Catholic) defeated St. Joseph 20-9. That was Della Vecchia’s sophomore year at St. Joseph.

“We had some wild state baseball games, too,” Della Vecchia said. “It’s always been a great match-up as long as I’ve been here. We’re in the same boat, we’re two small Catholic schools playing in this great league, and there’s a lot of pride on the line for both teams.”

Popularity: 17% [?]