DiBona Hits Lee With 16.3 Seconds Left as Naugatuck Edges Woodland 15-12
The short version
- Naugatuck beat Woodland 15-12 on Sept. 25, 2026, on a Sean DiBona-to-Qwentarvous Lee TD pass with 16.3 seconds left.
- The Greyhounds drove 80 yards with no timeouts after Woodland intentionally took a safety with 2:21 remaining.
- DiBona went 6-for-10 for 88 yards with an interception; the drive was extended by a pass-interference call on Ryan Kenney.
- Woodland running back Colby Marsan broke his leg after rushing for 77 yards and a touchdown.
- Naugatuck is 3-0; Woodland is 2-1.
Naugatuck drove 80 yards without a timeout in the final two minutes to stun Woodland in Beacon Falls and stay unbeaten at 3-0.
Naugatuck improved to 3-0 with a 15-12 comeback win over Woodland in a high school football game played in Beacon Falls, Connecticut, on September 25, 2026. The Greyhounds scored the deciding touchdown on a pass from quarterback Sean DiBona to running back Qwentarvous Lee with 16.3 seconds remaining. Woodland fell to 2-1.
The winning score finished an 80-yard drive that Naugatuck ran with no timeouts and barely two minutes on the clock. DiBona opened the march with completions of 17 yards to Brandon Andoh and 26 and 16 yards to Josiah Loyd, moving the ball to the Woodland 21 at the 1:22 mark. After two incompletions and a 3-yard pass to Andoh, his fourth-down throw into the end zone fell incomplete, but Woodland's Ryan Kenney was flagged for pass interference with 23.4 seconds left. Given a fresh set of downs at the 9-yard line, DiBona connected with Lee for the game-winner.
Naugatuck got the ball in that precarious position because of an unusual Woodland decision. After the Greyhounds stopped the Hawks on three straight runs and used all three timeouts, Woodland coach Jeremy Clark intentionally took a safety with 2:21 left, having punter Hunter Cronk run out of the back of the end zone rather than punt from his own goal line. Clark preferred protecting a 12-9 lead over risking a short kick and strong field position for Naugatuck.
The gamble nearly worked perfectly. On the ensuing free kick from his own 20, Cronk boomed a wind-aided ball that took favorable bounces down the right sideline and reached the end zone for a touchback. That forced Naugatuck to go the full 80 yards with no timeouts, a task DiBona ultimately handled.
DiBona, a first-year senior quarterback, finished the game 6-for-10 for 88 yards with one interception. Coach Chris Anderson praised him afterward, calling him a character kid who understands pass schemes and coverages and saying he came up big when the team needed him.
Woodland had taken a 12-7 lead with 7:41 to play on a 5-yard touchdown pass from backup quarterback Michael Bandanza to Kenney, capping a 57-yard drive. The score came at a heavy cost: running back Colby Marsan, the Hawks' best player in the game, broke his leg on a run that gained a first down at the Naugatuck 15 during that drive. Marsan finished with 77 yards on 15 carries, including a 25-yard touchdown run that opened the scoring in the game.
Naugatuck answered Woodland's go-ahead touchdown with an 11-play drive to the Woodland 9, but the Hawks' defense held and took over on downs with 2:49 left. The Greyhounds then forced the three-run stop that set up Woodland's deliberate safety. Naugatuck's other touchdown came on a 15-yard Andoh run, with Gabriel Bello adding the kick. Woodland missed the kick after Marsan's touchdown and failed on a two-point try after the Kenney score, and Naugatuck's two-point attempt after the Lee touchdown also failed, leaving the final at 15-12.
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