FCIAC Football Blog

Everyone knows Bridgeport Central is a team that is going to come at you on defense, and they do strike fear into their opponents. They did not back down to the Division I star powered King Offense at the Wilton Jamboree.

Teams scrimmaged each other for 20 plays: 10 on offense and 10 on defense. Here’s King’s offensive series against Central’s defense.

For eight plays, Central kept King out of the end zone. Then Kevin Pierre-Louis scored on a short run on play nine. The 10th play though was a classic King play: Pierre-Louis and Eric Joyner in the backfield with Silas Redd as the quarterback in the Wildcat set.

Redd kept the ball and got to the end zone untouched.

Every team that faced King School on Saturday at the Wilton Jamboree got a little bit better as a result.

On defense, try stopping Silas Redd, Kevin Pierre-Louis and Eric Joyner. On offense, try getting by Redd, Pierre-Louis and Joyner.

First up on Saturday was home team Wilton. As Warriors head coach Bruce Cunningham said during the scrimmage, “The first time I saw Redd turn the corner, I knew no one in Wilton was going to stop him. And I mean no one at this scrimmage.”

Mike Serricchio has improved as a vertical passer, as shown in this touchdown pass to Matt Smyth.

We all know how good Penn State-bound Silas Redd and future Boston College linebacker Kevin Pierre-Louis are. But if you watched the King duo first-hand against eight other teams today at the Wilton Jamboree, your jaw would have dropped.

It was a show. A freak show. Silas Redd and Kevin Pierre-Louis are probably the two best players we’ll see in Fairfield County this season. Make that two of the best four: King classmate Eric Joyner was not unleashed today, and Stamford linebacker Khairi Fortt and his Stamford teammates were not at the scrimmage.

As Wilton head coach put it: “When I saw Redd hit the corner, no one in this entire town was going to stop him.”

Redd’s speed and acceleration made him a joy to watch. There was a spin-move against Norwalk that left the Bears defense in its tracks. And Pierre-Louis ran for a touchdown in which he stiff-armed a Bears player, then hurdled another on his way to pay dirt.

Now, there were some teams and individual players who were able to contain Redd annd Pierre-Louis, but that was few and far between.

Central’s defense was fired up for King when it had its 10 play series. Kind finally scored on a short run by Pierre-Louis, on the ninth play of the drive.

Then on the 10th, with Redd quarterbacking from the wildcat formation, he went 35-yards untouched for a score.

Best individual play against Redd: King quarterback Mike Serricchio hit Redd on a swing pass, but Redd was immediately hit and dropped for a loss by Ludlowe strong safety Steve Gasper.

King is the best team any of the FCIAC schools will face this season, in my honest opinion. And in return, the schools that King faced today are probably the best King will see, unless King returns to a New England prep school championship game again.

Remember two years ago, when everyone was talking about the great recruiting class led by Jonathan Meyers? With all due respect to Meyers, who turned down Florida for Princeton, the Class of 2010 is even greater.

The King School trio are just about all set: Silas Redd chose Penn State, Kevin Pierre-Louis will play for Boston College, and Eric Joyner is high on Virginia.

So now we’re waiting on Stamford’s Khairi Fortt, and The Advocate’s Dave Ruden profiles his story today. He’s getting recruited, by, well, just about everyone. He’s putting up super-human scores and stats at camps.

By Tim Parry

King did not come home from West Hartford with a New England Prep School Athletic Conference championship. It didn’t take home the big trophy after the Sampson-Lourden Bowl. It lost 29-14 to a much bigger, much deeper Milton Academy team.

But Fairfield County should be proud of the King football program. It’s not every season that one of its Fairchester Athletic Association teams makes it to one of the five NEPSAC title games, and its not every season that a team like King could dominate so many of its opponents.

And by all means, King left everything on the Kingswood-Oxford School field yesterday. Including tears. Sure, some would say there’s no crying in football, but I’d rather see a team wear its heart on its sleeve like it did yesterday than take an oh-well approach when failing to win a title.

Here’s the article I did for the Stamford Advocate, and it includes some great photos by Kathleen O’Rourke (who didn’t catch me “chimping,” but did almost impale me with her monopod a couple of times, but she apologized and that’s cool!). And here’s the sidebar by Joe Ryan, which focuses on two senior captains, Vincent Love and Matt Santoro.

Milton head coach Kevin MacDonald and fullback Josh Scott, who was a one-person wrecking ball, had nothing but respect for King’s Big Three – Silas Redd, Kevin Pierre-Louis and Eric Joyner. They knew that the key to the game was to control the ball, and then find a way to contain those three Division I prospects.

And the overall numbers may have not shown it, but sophomore quarterback Mikey Serricchio did a very good job running the offense. And statistically, he did have a better day than counterpart Chris Amrheim, who completed just one of 11 passes.

Though I saw King in the preseason, I wasn’t convince a team like King could compete in the FCIAC. But after watching yesterday, I honestly didn’t see as many holes as I felt it had. And that was with a few key players in street clothes because of injuries yesterday.

What’s your opinion of King? Sound off on this thread on the FCIAC Football Blog’s boards.