​Ridgefield’s Brodie Block rushed for a school-record 344 yards to lead the Tigers to a 50-36 victory over Maloney in Connecticut High School Football Alliance action at Falcon Field in Meriden on Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Jim Fuller/For Hearst Connecticut Media)
MERIDEN – Unless you happened to be the scoreboard operator or perhaps one of the two defensive coordinators, the four quarters of high school football between Ridgefield and Maloney was something to behold on Friday night at Falcon Field.On one side, Ridgefield’s Brodie Block was cutting and spinning his way to a school-record 344 rushing yards in a scintillating 50-36 win over host Maloney. The Spartans rode the 390 passing yards from Eli Showerda to make the Tigers earn this victory.”You can’t ask for much more, that is the most fun game that I will ever play.” Block said. “I just have to thank the boys up front, because without them, I can’t do anything.”Showerda and the Spartans struck first as he connected with Cayden Simonds Gaskins for a 40-yard touchdown pass. Connor Chojnacki had a pair of touchdown tosses to Chris Colsey and Block’s 3-yard TD run put the Tigers up 22-6. Simonds Gaskin had another TD grab as did teammate Joel Lopez Jr., while Ridgefield answered with Block’s 55-yard scamper.Ridgefield, which led 29-20 at halftime, relied on some power football in the second half. The Tigers only threw three passes in the third quarter. One of them was a 25-yard touchdown to Colsey. Block also broke free for an 80-yard touchdown.Lopez had his second TD catch of the game and Jameir Diaz also snared a Showerda pass for a score as Maloney only trailed by seven points heading into the fourth quarter.”It felt like he was perfect,” Reed said of Showerda. “He was great, he was outstanding. You look at him and go, ‘we are going to bottle him up’ and he starts winging it and throwing great passes and obviously they have really talented receivers. They really fought through a lot of adversity to keep that game close.”Hoping to eat up some clock and keep Showerda from adding to his growing yardage total, Ridgefield relied on Block and Santino Barrella to churn out the yards and pick up first downs.”We have done it for a couple of years,” Ridgefield coach Jamie Reed said of the option offense that was put in for this week’s game. “I took the name Hammer from Chuck Drury, who ran it at Pomperaug. We always call it, ‘double tight, double wing’ and when Chuck passed, our little tip of the cap to Chuck was to start calling it Hammer and the kids really embrace it.”A pair of dropped passes ended Maloney’s first drive of the fourth quarter. After three runs by Block, Colsey’s fourth TD grab of the game put the Tigers up 50-36. That finally put the game away.”This is not Maloney football, we struggled obviously on the defensive side,” Maloney coach Kevin Frederick said. “We had an opportunity at the end, we had a couple of dropped balls.”We knew they had it (the option running game), we have