Middletown’s Belzo Headed to Springfield

Hunter Belzo will miss playing football under the lights at Middletown High School, but the college-bound athlete is set to start the next chapter of his gridiron career.

“I’ll miss Friday nights. I’ll miss my friends and family coming out,” a nostalgic Belzo said, “Everyone is hyping you up when you come to school on Friday during game day. I’ll miss that the most and I’ll miss having people, who have known me my whole life, coming out to watch me play.”

His supporters will also miss watching Belzo run wild on Friday nights, but they can anticipate more of the same on Saturday afternoons, because the Middletown graduate is off to play collegiately for Springfield College.
The two-way football star opted to continue playing in Massachusetts, within driving distance of his family and friends, but it almost didn’t happen. 

“I wasn’t going to Springfield originally. I was going to Bluefield College in Virginia,” recalled Belzo, “Then Springfield called me to come up for a visit. I was just going to go for the visit, but when I went I fell in love with the school. The coaching staff was good and I just felt at home as soon as I got to Springfield.”

At Springfield, he’ll be playing under first-year head coach Mike Cerasuolo, who is very familiar with the program, having spent the past 15 seasons as the team’s offensive coordinator. The team has won five rushing titles under Cerasuolo’s tutelage, which bodes well for Belzo, who will be joining the Prides’ offensive backfield.

He’ll focus on one side of the ball at Springfield, but Belzo excelled in both the offensive and defensive backfields at Middletown for the past three seasons.

As a defensive back, he loved delivering punishing hits and forcing turnovers, emulating his game after one of his favorite players.

“I like to get the big hit. You get the ‘oohs and ahhs’ from everyone in the bleachers,” said Belzo, who led Middletown in tackles this past fall, “I always try and strip the ball out. I got that from watching Tyrann Mathieu when he was at LSU. He’s a smaller guy like me. I like to watch him on film and take some stuff from him.”

Belzo got his tenacious defensive mentality from The Honey Badger, but he wore #22 at Middletown and patterned his ground game after another SEC (Southeastern Conference) legend, Mark Ingram.

“The {Springfield} coaches decided to put me at running back. People can’t really tell that I’m quick or fast. They underestimate my speed,” added Belzo, “Speed was the one thing I focused on going into my senior year, because during my junior year I got caught from behind a couple of times. I spent all offseason working on breakaway speed and I didn’t get caught senior year, so it worked out good.”

The natural sprinter helped enhanced his speed by running track at Middletown High, competing in the 100 meter and 4x100 relay during his junior year. He didn’t run his senior season, choosing to focus all of his attention on his future in football and to avoid injury.

On the field, he’ll have a few familiar faces joining him at Springfield, including Wethersfield’s all-state linebacker Richard Williams, who was selected as the defensive MVP of the Super 100 All-Star game this past Saturday. The two were fierce rivals during high school, but now join forces at the college level.

“We’ve been competing and going at it for three years,” a smiling Belzo said, “Now we’re talking, so we’re pretty good friends now.”
The transition to Springfield could be challenging for Belzo, who was born and raised in Middletown, but he said that he finds comfort on the football field and through family.  His father, Mike Belzo, introduced his son to the game and has supported his journey every step of the way.

“My dad got me into playing football when I was young,” Belzo recalled, “We came to a youth football practice before I could play and he ask me if I thought I could do this. I said yes, so the next year he signed me up.”

He was only six years old at the time and a few years later he was stepping onto the field as a high school player. He created a lot of memories in the Blue Dragons’ blue and white, but it was his first season playing at a varsity level which created the most lasting of memories.

“Our sophomore year we went to New London and we lost by three. We came back here and played them in the first round of the playoffs and we rolled them,” Belzo recalled about the team’s 49-14 victory in the 2013 Class L playoffs, “That was one of the most memorable games. All the guys still talk about that now.”

This past season, the team finished 8-2 in the regular season, earning their fourth straight trip to the postseason. The season ended in defeat, but Belzo’s final season was memorable for another reason, because he got to play on the same field as his younger brother, Stone.

“It was good, even though I’m tough on him. In the games I’m always yelling at him and he gets frustrated, but I know what he’s capable of doing. I expect the most out of him as anybody on the team,” Hunter said about playing with his younger sibling, “We got to hit some people together, so it was pretty fun.”

“He definitely pushed me to be a better player. He’s pushed me to be more aggressive on the field and that’s what I like most about his game. I like his aggressiveness, so I take after that. I try and copy that part of his game,” Stone said about his older brother’s mindset, “Plus Hunter taught me some techniques on defense that I never knew before.”

The Belzo brothers both played under Sal Morello, who has compiled an impressive 48-18 record since taking over as the team’s head coach in 2010. Morello helped resurrect the football program, which was coming off a 1-9 campaign in 2009.

“He’s tough, but he’s a really good coach,” Belzo said about Morello, “Sometimes you’re going to hate him, but you know he’s doing it for the right reason. He made me a better player by pushing me to my limits. There are times in the summer that he would push me and I would feel like I was going to pass out in practice, but it paid off in the games. He told me he was going to make practice harder than the games, so come game time it was easy.”

Morello’s intense practices have helped prepared Belzo for the next level. For his part, Belzo is working with a couple of trainers to improve his speed and power for the competition he’ll face this fall.  

“I’m trying to put on size so I can take the hits at the college level. It’ll be different, but I like how I feel when I’m on the field. That’s where I feel most comfortable. I also like hitting people,” Belzo said with a grin, “It’s going to be fun.”
 
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