Four possessions, four touchdowns.

That’s how effective and efficient Greenwich was the first four times it possessed the ball against FCIAC football foe Danbury on Monday night.

All that efficiency resulted in another highly impressive win for the soaring Cardinals.

Ranked No. 1 in the GameTimeCT Top 10 Poll, Greenwich lit the scoreboard for 29 points in the opening half on its way to recording a 36-0 victory over Danbury. Monday’s matchup was supposed to take place on Friday night, yet the game was moved due to inclement weather that blanketed the region.

“I guess a couple of extra days helped us,” Greenwich head coach Anthony Morello said. “I really liked what I saw from the offense tonight. I thought we threw the ball, spread the ball out really well.”

After being amped up to visit the Hatters on Friday, the Cardinals used that pent up energy during their practice sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

“I was really proud of the guys showing up and being locked in Saturday and Sunday morning for practice, because it was a unique situation,” Morello noted. “It’s the first time I ever coached a game on a Monday.”

Senior quarterback Rocco Grillo threw five touchdown passes – two apiece to senior wide receivers Gavyn Gennarelli and Brandon Auguste – against the Hatters to propel the Cardinals’ offense.

“Obviously, it was a better offensive performance than we put up the last couple of weeks,” said Grillo, who is flourishing so far in his first season as Greenwich’s starting quarterback. “I felt we really meshed today. Gavyn played a big role today, I have been playing with him forever.”

The Cardinals, who were coming off a huge 30-28 road win against non-conference foe Maloney on a field goal by Erick Perino on the game’s final play, also received a significant boost from their defense.

“We wanted to get a shutout, we were preaching that for the whole entire season,” Greenwich senior linebacker/captain John Insinga said. “That’s one of our goals and I’m really proud of our team for doing that.”

As usual, Insinga helped ignite the Cardinals’ defense, which swarmed to the ball, pressured Danbury senior quarterback Jacob Smiley and prevented the hosts from churning out yards with its running game.

“The defense did a great job,” Morello said. “Their quarterback is fast, dynamic, player he can do a lot of great things. But we contained him well tonight and we contained the run tonight. Overall, I was really pleased with the defense and we’re always happy when we get a shutout.”

Grillo completed three passes to Gennarelli on Greenwich’s first drive, putting the Cardinals in Hatters territory. A 12-yard pass over the middle to Auguste gave GHS a 6-0 lead with 5:18 remaining in the first quarter. Greenwich’s ensuing two-point conversion run was good, upping its advantage to 8-0.

After forcing Danbury (1-3) to punt on its ensuing possession, GHS promptly drove the ball down the field.

This time the Cards’ drive was concluded by a Grillo 24-yard scoring strike to Gennarelli, who hauled in the pass in the corner of the end zone with 2:21 still to go in the opening quarter. Junior Julian Ravina converted the point-after-attempt, putting GHS on top, 15-0.

“We knew Danbury was in a bear front, so we knew we could throw the ball – short outs, pitches, slants,” said Gennarelli, who has been one of Grillo’s go-to receivers through the season’s first four games. “We were clicking on all levels – running the ball, passing the ball. We wanted to come out hot and get in and out of here.”

Junior tight end Max Marek caught a 5-yard TD pass from Grillo, who rolled right and found Marek in the corner of the end zone, making it 22-0 with 30 seconds to go in the opening quarter.

“Everyone came to play today,” Grillo said. “The O-Line helped me out, Ian Kim did his job and the receivers played their part and we got it done today.”

Kim received the bulk of the carries in the backfield for Greenwich, as senior George Vomvolakis, the squad’s leading rusher, is nursing an injury. Greenwich’s offensive line was paced by Peter Vomvolakis, David Virella, Dylan Brehm and several others.

“George is healing up well, we expect him to be good to go by Darien, but Ian has done a formidable job for us,” Morello noted. “Our offensive line – we’re still working, we’re still grinding. It was nice to see us have a nice balanced attack.”

Scrambling to his left, Grillo threw a pass that was snared by Gennarelli in the left corner of the end zone, giving Greenwich a 29-0 advantage on Danbury at the 9:16 mark of the second quarter.

Meanwhile, Danbury’s offense, which has a prolific passing attack, was challenged to consistently move the ball against GHS’ defense.

“Coach (Bryan) Hocter (defensive coordinator) did a great job of adding in an odd formation, where we take a lineman out and we put a DB in and the DBs executed greatly,” Insinga said. “We wanted to be 4-0 and in the first half we came out flying around all aspects of the ball. I’m really proud of our team for what we did.”

Senior free safety Nick Aravides recovered a fumble, Insinga had several tackles resulting in lost yardage, as did senior linebacker Sebastian Parra and Greenwich played impressive pass defense throughout.

“Our defense is playing better than the score might indicate,” Morello said. “We’ve given up 21-plus points in three of our four games this year, or close to it. Some of that is self inflicted by the offense or our special teams.”

“Tonight, we were firing on all cylinders – offense, defense, special teams and when you are putting opposing offenses in bad situations, it usually means good things for you,” Morello continued.

Danbury, which received a sack from junior Derek Pitti, got an interception from senior defensive back John Bardin in the second half. The Hatters, who have lost three straight games, host Norwalk on Oct. 13.

Senior Kaine Raima entered the game at quarterback in the second half for Greenwich, which hosts Darien on Oct. 14 in a key FCIAC matchup.

“It was a fun game for all of us,” said Parra, a captain, who helped lead the linebacker corps with Insinga and senior Jaden Scott. “We watched a lot of film, we knew they were going to pass the ball most of the time. They barely ran the ball so we came out prepared for the pass game and added some more things to our defense to protect that.”