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The youth football season kicked off Saturday, but New Canaan would have liked better results. The New Canaan Junior Red fifth-grade team was working out some kinks in substitutions and play memorization as it let an 8-0 lead slip away. The Fairfield Junior fifth-grade team came out on top, 21-8. New Canaan head coach Matt Russo said his team will recover, saying it needs to overcome mental errors.
"I thought we played well, we just made mistakes," Russo said. "But you know what, this is the third year in a row we lost the first game, and we finished the last two years 6-1 and 5-2. So this is status quo for us."
New Canaan took an early 8-0 lead after just the third series of the game. It nearly went up by two scores, but fumbled on the 2-yard line. After that drive, New Canaan could not get much going. Griffin Arnone recovered a Fairfield fumble, but New Canaan could not convert it into points.
Fairfield scored 21 unanswered points, including two touchdowns in the last six minutes. New Canaan tried for a last-minute comeback, but quarterback Evan Reilly threw an interception to ice the game for Fairfield. Russo said the coaches and the players would be ready next week.
"We had some substitution issues, but it's hard to get 42 kids focused on the same thing on Day 1," Russo said. "We're ready to go back to the drawing board and regroup and get ready for a win against Wilton next weekend."
Many of the New Canaan youth teams played openings game Saturday, with most grabbing wins. The New Canaan Junior Black fifth-graders beat Ridgefield, 19-6; New Canaan Senior eighth-graders topped Fairfield, 20-15; and New Canaan Bantam Black third-graders pounded Darien, 20-7.
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