WINDSOR — John Manning took the direct snap, then took a direct line to the end zone, 69 yards away.
“Got to give it to my O-line,” he said. “It’s easy for me to run straight, that’s what I do. But my old line, making the blocks, making the holes for me.”
That was the first play of the game, and it not only set a tone for the CIAC Class MM semifinals, it reiterated those things that have become apparent in the state’s high school football sphere. One, Manning, 5 feet 8, who runs like a steam engine in pads, is not to be impeded, nor are his teammates, who routed Newington, 50-0 on Sunday. Two, Windsor, unbeaten and ranked No.1 in the state polls, is the team to watch, the team standing defiantly on the mountaintop right now.
“You just put a check mark by Windsor,” said Newington coach John Acquavita, “and you think, ‘if we keep going the way we’re going, that’s the prize at the end of the tunnel.’ Whether it’s the championship game or now, you’ve got to go through them to get there. And there are no weak spots. There’s really not.”
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For Manning, who scored on runs of 69, 7, 1 and 46 yards, ended up with 253 yards on 18 rushes, not the first game of this magnitude he has had. He went for 302 yards and six touchdowns in the season opener vs. East Hartford, scored five more touchdowns in a win over Berlin to clinch the league title. In this, his last game on Windsor High’s home field, he took center stage among his talented teammates one last time.
“John’s awesome, definitely one of the best running backs I’ve ever coached,” coach Rob Fleeting said. “Good speed, great vision, and he works hard. Sometimes you get talented kids who don’t put the work in, but there is nobody on the team that works harder than him. We’ve got some kids who work just as hard, but no one outworks him, and it shows on the field.”
This is all rather personal for Manning, who has an offer and hopes to play at Central Connecticut next year. The Warriors, who were last state champs in 2014, lost the championship game in 2021, Manning’s freshman year. He and the other seniors have been pounding away at the goal of getting back and getting the trophy. They lost in the semifinals to North Haven last year, now they are over that hump and back in the finals to play Masuk-Monroe next Friday at 6:30 p.m. at CCSU.
“It feels amazing, my freshman year, we lost to Maloney, it’s great to be back, that’s all,” Manning said. “Don’t make the same mistakes. We feel like, throughout the years, our leaders made mistakes we want to fix. Have great practices, go into the game.”
And there is something else. Windsor also reached the finals in 2002 and lost 14-13 to Ridgefield on a missed extra point. The Warriors MVP that day was Manning’s father, also John Manning, who scored the touchdown that could have tied the game in the fourth quarter. When the game ended, 22 years ago Sunday, he stared out, watching Ridgefield players celebrating, and told The Courant’s Bohdan Kolinsky, “I’m in shock. I can’t believe it. That could have been us.”
Now, it can be his son. He’s still a presence with the Windsor program, watching the younger John Manning run to rewrite that piece of history, too.
“He graduated in ’04, he lost is state championship game,” the younger John Manning said. “So I’ll always remember me and him having conversations about it. We have a lot conversations, me working out here when I’m 12 years old, trying to lose 50 pounds ‘cuz I was over weight. Me and him have had so many conversations about this exact moment, so it means a lot to make my family proud.”
Newington (10-2) beat Wethersfield in a hard-fought quarterfinal game, after losing to Wethersfield the night before Thanksgiving. Windsor, which has been No.1 in the polls since mid-October, won by forfeit in the quarterfinal round, and had not played since a 20-0 victory over Class S finalist Bloomfield on Nov. 23. Windsor (11-0) has outscored its opponents by an average margin of 31.6 points. The Warriors have beaten five playoff teams, and a signature win over Fairfield County power Darien in OT came with both quarterback AJ Robinson and Manning out.
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After Manning’s lightning strike Sunday on the game’s first play from scrimmage, Windsor got the ball back quickly and quarterback Anthony Robinson fired a 33-yard touchdown pass to Cashmire Lewis, so the Warriors offensive triumvirate was already involved.
Newington was unable to move the ball at all, and Windsor’s offensive and defensive lines dominated. After a punt rolled dead at the 1-yard line, they swamps Newington quarterback Enzo Corvino in the end zone for a safety to make it 16-0. Two Windsor drives stalled, but another reliable senior, kicker Matt Nesheiwat, who went 6-for-6 on extra points, booted field goals of 29 and 37 yards to give the Warriors a 22-0 lead at the half.
In the third quarter, Windsor swamped the punter, and also regained possession on downs twice and recovered a fumble to get short fields to work. Manning continued to race to the end zone, and Robinson threw a TD pass to Missoni Brown.
“It feels great, the kids work hard,” Fleeting said. “This is why we do this as coaches, to see young men develop and guide them. We tell them if they work hard, good things will come out of it. We’ve got a special group together.”