Inspired Greenwich puts exclamation point on case to be No. 1
EAST HARTFORD — Big games bring out big plays and nobody made nearly as many as Charlie Dixon on Saturday night at Rentschler Field.
The biggest games also bring out the biggest of emotions and it was obvious that they were waiting to burst from the mouths of the Greenwich football team following the CIAC Class LL championship.
Yes, it became obvious there was plenty of payback for the opponent in this one.
A senior wide receiver and defensive back, Dixon was nearly a Top Ten highlight reel by himself in Greenwich’s resounding 37-17 victory over Fairfield Prep.
He intercepted three Tyler Smith passes, the first a 34-yard pick six less than three minutes into the game. It was a cold fast slap in Prep’s face.
“We knew they they’d throw a 10-yard out, because every time (receiver Ryan Preisano) touches his gloves,” Dixon said. “Our coaches did a great job studying them. I just jumped it. It set the tone for the whole game.”
Dixon made one 11-yard catch inside the 10-yard line, pulling in the ball through two Prep defenders, that looked like a David Copperfield sleight of hand magic trick.
He made another leaping catch at the back of the end zone as he was being pushed out of bounds. Dixon is sure it should have counted for another touchdown. The official disagreed. It was close.
In all, Dixon hauled in five passes from Jack Wilson for 61 yards.
Even on the one play Dixon was beaten and a flag went up for pass interference, Preisano had to make a terrific catch in the corner of the end zone.
Just for good measure, Dixon sent Prep receiver Will McCormick head over heels with a theatrical hit at midfield.
He was everywhere. “Charlie Dixon was a man inspired,” Greenwich coach Anthony Morello said. “Great players show up in big moments. He put the team on his back today and gave us the juice we needed in the first half. He put the game away all by himself in
a sense.”
Whatever was said, whatever was felt, whatever was decided after Greenwich’s 39-38 loss to Staples on Thanksgiving should be bottled and saved in the Greenwich locker room for years to come. The Cardinals went on to beat Hamden, 47-7. They beat Glastonbury, 42-0. They beat Fairfield, 37-17. That’s 126-24 in the Class LL playoffs.
Greenwich owned the tournament.
“The loss to Staples hurt,” Morello said. “It’s a rivalry. But I told them this is not what people will remember if we do what we can do. If we do what we want to do, they won’t remember that Thanksgiving loss.” What Thanksgiving loss? Even with a pair of onepoint regular season defeats, Greenwich deserves to become the first team in the 61-year history of the New Haven Register/GameTimeCT poll to finish No. 1 with two losses.
Our Pete Paguaga sent me a few morsels strengthening Greenwich’s argument. Its regular season opponents were 64-36 and the Cardinals played four teams with 9-1 records and only one team with fewer than four wins.
New Canaan’s opponents were 47-53. St. Joseph, the only team to beat New Canaan, had nine wins. Two opponents had seven and there was a 1-9 and 0-10 team.
“I’ll take our guys against anyone,” Wilson said.
“Absolutely, we’re the best team,” Dixon said.
And like we said, Greenwich owned the tournament.
“After the Staples loss, we realized he had to step it up,” Dixon said. “We can be THAT team. We’re the most dominant team in the state and we came out to prove it. That loss (to Staples) was a fluke and so was the one to Southington. We should have won both of them. But it doesn’t matter. Look at that score.”
He turned around to point
at the Rent scoreboard. The numbers already had been turned off.
“Oops, it’s gone,” Dixon said breaking into a laugh. “We’re still the best team in state.”
Morello was hired to replace John Marinelli in June 2019 when Marinelli joined the Arizona staff only six months after he had led Greenwich to an undefeated season and the first No. 1 poll ranking in school history. Marinelli, who was at the game, supported Morello’s hiring 100 percent.
“He was a young coach who was hungry, who really wanted a bigger role and more opportunities,” said Marinelli, now on Jim Mora’s UConn staff. “We sat down. We talked about how hard that job is.
“You’ve got to win. Because it’s such a part of the community, you have to integrate. It’s not just go show up and coach. You have to do things in the offseason. The expectations to be present. It’s a tough job.”
Morello grew up rooting for Greenwich. He was an All-State lineman at Greenwich. He was an All-American lineman at Union. He joined the Greenwich staff in 2011.
“I know all too well what the expectations are,” Morello said. “You just don’t lose games, but knowing that has only pushed me harder and to rally around our staff. I owe everything to those coaches.
“When coach Marinelli
took a shot on me and then (former AD) Gus Lindine, on a coach who had no varsity head coach experience and is thrown into one of the biggest programs in the state, if not the biggest. It was a trial by fire in a sense. It didn’t go without speed bumps along the way. But we continued to grind every day.”
Dixon pointed to Morello also taking on the offensive play-calling duties midseason last year as an important move. Greenwich averaged 42 points a game in 2022.
Already staunch against the run, some midseason moves on defense were made, including to have Dixon play in the defensive secondary.
“He’s absolutely a playmaker back there.” Morello said. “Charlie wasn’t playing defense against Ridgefield (49-42 win) and Southington (29-28 loss) earlier in the season.”
Greenwich lost in a playoff quarterfinal to Darien in 2019 and was up last year, 14-7, in the third quarter of the quarterfinals against Fairfield Prep and looked ready to go up two scores. Wilson picked up a first down on a quarterback keep, began his slide to give himself up.
Prep defensive back Joe D’Elia raced in and hit Wilson hard, very hard. Wilson was prone on the field for minutes. It was scary. D’Elia said he didn’t expect Wilson to slide.
There was a 15-yard penalty. The ball was put on the Prep 26. With Wilson out with a concussion, Greenwich fumbled. And then fumbled again. And again. The seven-minute nightmare turned into a 21-14 Prep victory.
The penalty was the correct call. But it did not appear to be a purposely malicious one.
That, of course, is open to interpretation. And a year later, Dixon had his.
“We knew it was a dirty hit,” Dixon said. “The kid stood over him looking at him. Dirty hit. They tried to do a few today. We won for our seniors from last year. We were the better team. And we’re the better team now.”
Although Wilson wasn’t cleared for athletic activity for nearly two months, he had played down the motivation from the hit. Some stuff obviously happened in recent days.
“Yes, I did play it down,” said Wilson. “But throughout the week, over social media they were posting the picture of me getting hit. Kind of mocking me a bit. To come out and put them back in their place and send them home feels great.
“It was obviously in the back of my head. I didn’t think there were any hard feelings and then they go on social media and start mocking me about it. That’s not OK. I’m not going to take that. Obviously, I would play it down. It was a dirty hit. I played it down. They come out and start acting like that, it’s just disrespectful. You got to man up.”
Dixon loves his quarterback.
“State player of the year,” Dixon said. “Best quarterback in the state.”
After the game last year, Dixon said a number of Fairfield Prep players were “kissing us goodbye and waving us goodbye.”
And this year?
“We did the same thing, only in a more important game,” Dixon said.