Derby posted its second straight victory Saturday afternoon when the Red Raiders knocked off Watertown 24 – 8 at Shelton High School.
Jacob Tomczak led the Red Raiders’ (2 – 3 overall, 2 – 0 Brass Division) charge, scoring three touchdowns, including a record-tying 98-yard touchdown catch from quarterback Ray Krieger in the third quarter.
Derby head coach George French praised Tomczak’s effort.
“Tomczak woke up. It took him five games, but he woke up,” French said. “He had an excellent, excellent game. We saw him driving the ball like he did last year. Absolutely great game today.”
The touchdown is tied for the longest in Derby history with Ron Lungarini’s pass to Dave Narowski in a game against Hillhouse in 1966.
Derby’s defense started out strong and kept the pressure on the Indians’ offense all game.
On the opening drive of the game, Watertown (3 – 2, 1 – 1) quarterback Mark Quatrano was intercepted by Derby’s Ray Kreiger at the Red Raiders 40 yard line, with just under nine minutes left in the first quarter.
But Derby couldn’t capitalize on the drive.
“The big thing was making plays,” French said. “We talked earlier about plays that didn’t go our way, but this week it did. We want to go for blood, we want to go and get it.”
Krieger added another pick later in the game, stopping a potential Indians scoring drive.
Midway through the second quarter, Kreiger threw a 47-yard-pass to Zach Salazar, which set up a Kreiger three-yard run to the right to put Derby up 6 – 0.
Jacob Tomczak stopped a Watertown drive with 2:13 left in the second quarter, picking off Quatrano at the Red Raiders 33-yard line. The turnover set up two big Derby plays: a Kreiger pass to Casco for 36 yards; and the second score of the game, a 27-yard pass to Tomczak with 34 seconds left in the half.
Watertown came back quickly. Right before the stroke of halftime Quatrano ran a bootleg for a 14-yard touchdown. The two point conversion was good, cutting the Red Raiders’ lead to four — with a score of 12 to 8 — at the half.
Tomczak scored one last time, with 1:30 left in the game, on a 30-yard run to put the game on ice.
Despite Tomczak’s great day, he was humble when asked how he rated his performance.
“The whole team played great the entire four quarters. We try to play every game like that,” Tomczak said.
The game was originally scheduled for Friday evening, but was moved to Saturday at Shelton High School due to inclement weather.
Derby will play next Friday at Monroe Field in Wolcott (4 – 1, 2 – 1) to face the Eagles. The game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start.
