The Berlin
Cit itiz ize en Volume 13, Number 50
Berlin’s Only Hometown Newspaper
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Finally...state football champs
Photo by Matt Leidemer
Berlin High School football captains, center, Taylor Tavarozzi, David Campagna and Doug Campbell, hold the state championship plaque. By Jim Bransfield Special to The Citizen Again and again Berlin High’s football team has gone to state championship games. And time after time the Redcoats lost. The last time, in 2007, the Redcoats thought they were robbed as an apparent touchdown in the closing seconds was ruled a fumble at the goal line.
But finally, on the sixth time to the finals, the Berlin Redcoats reached The Promised Land. This time, they did it in style, crushing Bethel Sunday afternoon at Waterbury’s Ray Snyder, Sr. Field at Municipal Stadium 46-6 to claim the Class M crown. What the Redcoats couldn’t do as a member of the Nutmeg League, they did as a first-year member of the
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Central Connecticut Conference. The CCC sent five teams to the playoffs. Only Berlin, maybe the most unlikely of the five, came home a winner. “I’m just so happy for our kids, for our town which is a
great football community and for all the coaches that went before, like Al Pelligrinelli, who built this program,” said coach John Capodice. “It was worth the wait, although that one two years ago would have been nice.” This game was all Berlin all the time. The Redcoats had 530 yards total offense led by the running of Max DeLorenzo,
whose 332 yards in 44 carries — good for three rushing touchdowns — ranks with the great performances in CIAC playoff history. DeLorenzo also caught a pass for a TD. “He’s a horse,” said Capodice. “He hit the holes that our offensive line opened up and they were great. Our line got off the
See Champs, page 25