Class LL football: Southington is back with quarterfinal win over Glastonbury

SOUTHINGTON – The last time the Glastonbury and Southington football teams played, in September, the game went into overtime.

Glastonbury won that game.

On Wednesday, the two CCC teams faced each other again in a Class LL quarterfinal game.

It was close again. But this time Southington came out on top.

No. 4 Southington, which didn’t make the playoffs last season, beat fifth-seeded Glastonbury 35-30 to advance to the Class LL semifinals against No. 8 NFA, a 35-0 winner over top-seeded New Britain Wednesday, on Monday night at Southington High.

Southington sophomore Ben Beaulieu had five touchdowns Wednesday and rushed for 138 yards on 15 carries for Southington (8-3), which came into the playoffs with a five-game win streak.

Glastonbury (7-4) had beaten Southington 41-35 on Sept. 18.

“We felt we left some meat on the bone in that game,” Southington coach Rob Levesque said. “Tonight wasn’t so clean either but the kids buckled down, they executed when they needed to.”

Glastonbury had a chance to win late in the game after recovering an onsides kick but on fourth-and-3, quarterback Conner Finnerty (11 for 21, 180 yards) threw a pass in the end zone that was caught out of bounds.

Southington got on the board first with a 33-yard Beaulieu touchdown run with 9:47 left in the first quarter but Glastonbury tied the score two minutes later on a 26-yard touchdown pass from Conner Finnerty to Rocco Meigs.

Southington went up 14-7 with 5:14 left on a 4-yard run by Beaulieu then Glastonbury had a long drive to the 9-yard line that ended with a Thomas Pingle 26 yard field goal. Southington led 14-10, with 9:37 left in the half.

Glastonbury’s punt after its next drive was blocked and recovered by Southington and Beaulieu ran the ball 30 yards for his third TD of the game and the Blue Knights led 21-10.

But Southington fumbled on a punt return and Glastonbury got the ball back on the Southington 37 and scored five plays later on a Finnerty pass to Danny Wallace that cut the lead to 21-17 with 33 seconds left in the half.

Southington had a 49-yard kick return and got into the red zone but Glastonbury blocked a 22-yard field goal to end the half.

The Blue Knights went up 28-17 with 36 seconds left in the third quarter on Beaulieu’s fourth TD and 35-24 on his fifth – a 3-yard run – with 6:18 left in the game.

Glastonbury rallied and scored with 2:58 left on a Finnerty 1-yard TD run to cut the lead to 35-30 but the conversion run failed.