HS football: Gleim looked good for Quinebaug Valley

Plainfield may have won the football game, 22-19, but the star of the show was Quinebaug Valley running back Shane Gleim.
The former Tourtellotte/Ellis Tech back had a pair of 60-plus yard runs that kept the Pride in the game against the young Panthers in the season opener for both on a rainy night Thursday night in Putnam.
Gleim carried the ball just 11 times, but rushed for 151 yards, 68 of those came early in the second quarter.
Plainfield had just scored on the last play of the first quarter to take the early lead. The Pride took over on their own 25-yard-line after the kickoff and moved up five yards on an encroachment call against the Panthers. That's when Quinebaug Valley coach Shane Szydlo called Gleim's number. Running out of the right wing in the Pride's double-wing offense, Gleim hadn't gone anywhere in his first two carries of the game, that changed this time when he spied a hole and made a quick decision.
"It was originally a sweep where I was supposed to run all the way to the (left) side, but if the cutback lane was there, we take it," Gleim described. "I had three blocks in front of me, I saw the opening with only a defensive back and I just cut it back, had one man to beat."
Unfortunately, he couldn't shake that one man and was finally taken down at the two-yard line. On the next play, Mike Seifert (14 carries, 60 yards) took it in for the score to cut the deficit to one point.
Plainfield scored again before the half and there was concern the game would not be finished when the two teams came out of the locker room to be greeted by heavy rain and lightning which delayed the contest for 30 minutes.
Gleim had seen his yardage total go down in the two carries since his 68-yard burst, he went negative-6 in those. But he made up for that midway through the third quarter after Quinebaug Valley had climbed out of a hole of its own making following a penalty that pushed it back to its own 11-yard -line. Shane Herlihy (5 carries, 35 yards) went 12 yards and a facemask penalty pushed the Pride up to their own 38-yard line. On a wet field, with rain pouring down, Gleim took advantage of the slick conditions by reversing the field, again to the left side, and found daylight for a 62-yard touchdown.
"I got two blocks, one from Norman Henry, and another pancake block right in front of me, so I had no to beat except the one kid that I stiff-armed and then it was just a touchdown- it was all about the blocking," Gleim said.
But even those two runs were not enough to lift the Pride to a victory in their first outing as a combined Putnam/Tourtellotte/Ellis Tech unit.
"As a team, yes, I'm happy; personally, I expected better," Gleim said. "As a team we came together in the second half. In the first half, (Plainfield) was kind of throwing us around, doing whatever they wanted."
The good thing for Quinebaug Valley, it gets a week to rest and think about this game as its next game doesn't take place until Saturday, Oct. 2 at home against Abbott Tech.

NOTES

Although some may have thought it a bad decision to play a game on Thursday night due to the threat of bad weather, it worked out for Plainfield and Quinebaug Valley.
The predicted rain came and came down hard for a time from late in the second quarter to the beginning of the fourth. There was also the one flash of lightning that prompted officials to clear the field for half-an-hour prior to the start of the second half. The predicted damaging winds never materialized and, due to the lack of rain in the area, the field absorbed most of the water and never got real sloppy.

It doesn't look like New London's home field is going to be ready any time soon.
The Whalers this week announced that the game with Waterford on Oct. 8 has been moved from New London to Waterford. The chairman of the building committee for the new turf field in New London, Peg Curtin, had originally indicated that she had hoped the field would be finished by that time.
New London has also asked for the home game against Wilton on Oct. 1 to be moved from Friday to Saturday, Oct. 2 at 1 p.m. The Whalers hoping to play the Warriors on Waterford's home field.

The New Haven Register preseason poll has Notre Dame of West Haven predicted to be the top team in the state again this year. The West Haven school took 12 of the 18 first-place votes from a panel of sportswriters with Masuk - led by former New London quarterback Casey Cochran - getting two and Xavier, New Canaan, Staples and New London getting one each.
Xavier, New Canaan, St. Joseph and Staples rounded out the top five in the balloting followed by Masuk, Cheshire, New London, Berlin and Bridgeport Central. Other ECC schools getting votes included Montville, who finished just out of the top 10, Ledyard and East Lyme.