St. Paul football began its home schedule on a positive note Saturday night with a 30-14 win over Derby at McPhee Field.
It was the first win for first-year head coach Joe Cianciolo. Cianciolo took over for Chris Kennedy. Kennedy had replaced the legendary Jude Kelly, but there was no season in 2020. Kennedy moved on to CREC, which opened up the job for Cianciolo to apply to. St. Paul lost to Kennedy in Week 1, but bounced back after a bye week with the win over Derby.
The Falcons rushed for four touchdowns, two apiece from Nick Dube and Isaiah Conner. St. Paul also scored four points via two safeties when Derby snaps went into the end zone. The Falcons improved to 1-1 while the Raiders fell to 0-2.
Derby’s defense stood up to St. Paul on its opening drive, stopping the Falcons on downs at the Raider 6 with 6:36 left in the first quarter. When a snap squirted past Derby quarterback Kanye Bailey into the end zone, he knocked it out of bounds and the Falcons had a 2-0 lead at the 5:43 mark. Twenty-two seconds later, Dube had his first touchdown and St. Paul had an 8-0 lead. A snap over Bailey’s head turned into another safety and a 10-0 Falcon lead at the 3:19 mark of the first quarter. Dube scored another touchdown with 1:38 left in the first quarter to build the lead to 16-0.
The second quarter was a scoreless stalemate until the last play of the half, which Conner ran in for a touchdown and a 22-0 halftime lead. When Conner scooted right and scored on the opening drive of the third quarter and Dube ran in the conversion, St. Paul had a 30-0 lead at the 10:08 mark.
Derby got on the board when Bryan McLean caught a pass from Bailey, broke free from a St. Paul tackle, and ran the rest of the 51 yards for a touchdown. The conversion failed, but the score was 30-6 with 8:32 left in the third quarter. The Raiders later scored on fourth and long when Bailey threw to Michael Hyder, who broke a tackle and ran the final 20 yards for the score. The visitors scored on their conversion run to make it 30-14, St. Paul. The Falcons stalled inside the Raider 10 with 3:48 to play in the game, but the visitors couldn’t get any more offense going.
Conner was all over the place on offense and defense for St. Paul. Conner ran the ball and blocked for Dube on offense, and he was often seen running down a ball carrier or delivering a big hit on defense.
St. Paul has its first win of 2021, and next up is a tough road test at Naugatuck on Friday at 7 p.m.
Photo caption: St. Paul’s Nick Dube carries the ball during Saturday night’s win over Derby at McPhee Field. (Copyright, Sports on CT-69)
GALLERY
Here are my photos from Saturday night’s St. Paul game.
