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Rentas, West Haven outlast North Haven for first victory

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WEST HAVEN — In a back-and-forth battle, the West Haven football team survived a chaotic second half to earn its first win of the season, 27-23 over North Haven Saturday at Ken Strong Stadium.

Four lead changes highlighted the second half as the two teams matched each other touchdown for touchdown until the end.

West Haven was led by quarterback Andre Rentas, who fired three touchdown passes en route to the victory, including the game-winning touchdown pass to Dontea Noel in the final seven minutes.

The third lead change of the second half came on yet another North Haven rushing touchdown, this time by David Pace for a 23-20 lead with 8:17 remaining in the game.

West Haven would not let it be the last.

Less than two minutes later, Rentas dotted a 19-yard touchdown pass to Dontea Noel for the 27-23 lead that would hold for the remainder of the game.

West Haven improved to 1-3 while North Haven fell to 1-3.

“It was a tough game obviously,” West Haven coach Rich Boshea said. “North Haven is always tough. They run the ball great. They have a great coach. Their defense doesn’t give you much.

“We got Andre [Rentas] enough time in some key situations, if you give him time he is going to do some big things. I thought we ran the ball better than we have been and our offensive line with all our sophomores and juniors in it is finally starting to jell a little bit. Overall, it was a pretty good team effort.”

West Haven opened the scoring on a 10-yard rush by Jaden Grant that gave his team an early 7-6 lead.

North Haven responded with a 16-yard rushing touchdown by Jaden Watson, who broke a tackle with 36 seconds in the quarter. A missed extra point attempt kept cut the West Haven lead to 7-6.

On the next drive, Rentas connected with a wide-open Jordan Berrios for a 26-yard catch-and-run touchdown to extend the West Haven lead to 13-6.

North Haven marched down the field on its next possession. But after a third-down stop by the Blue Devils’ defense, kicker Chase DiCarlo delivered with a short field goal to make it a four-point game heading into halftime.

“I credit West Haven for finding a way to win the game,” North Haven coach Anthony Sagnella said. “It was a tug-of-war back and forth. It was a physical game at the line of scrimmage and I congratulate them for finding a way to win.”

The second half began as pure chaos for West Haven. With the Blue Devils set to receive, North Haven forced and recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff.

North Haven capitalized with a 6-minute, 20 second drive that ended with Corey Hooks willing himself into the end zone on a 12-yard rush, breaking through a pileup of for the score.

The touchdown put North Haven up 16-13, its first lead of the game with 7:40 to play in the third quarter.

“Even though we had lost our three games before this, we didn’t really ever give up,” Boshea said. “I was kind of feeling today that, as long as we kept it close, we would keep fighting and they did just that.

“They kept fighting and it really didn’t make a difference what the score was, they were going to play the same way and we did some good things on offense.”

West Haven threatened again, marching down the field quickly with the help of multiple North Haven penalties.

On third and goal, Rentas hit Justin Medina for his second passing touchdown of the game as West Haven regained its four-point lead, 20-16.

“We are a very very undisciplined football team and those things are negating a lot of the positive things that we do on the field,”  Sagnella said.

“Our team works hard and our team plays hard but we probably had well over 100 yards in penalties today and we have to get better at that. That is a challenge for us right now, to learn how to handle adversity and we are failing and that starts with me. We all have to do a better job at handling adversity.”