Bonac Football Right There in Loss at Sayville

There was talk that Friday night’s high school football game at Sayville, the defending county champion, might be a blowout, but no, the Bonackers of East Hampton proved to be a formidable opponent during the course of what wound up as a 28-14 loss.

The Golden Flashes, whose quarterback, Patrick Coan, is to play at Lehigh, drove down the field following Manny Morales’s opening kickoff, but once having advanced to a first-and-goal at East Hampton’s 9-yard line, they were stymied by staunch Bonac defenders.

The Bonackers had to punt the first time they had possession, and Sayville had to punt also the second time it had the ball. But East Hampton cashed in on its second try as Livs Kuplins, after he’d hauled in a long pass from Theo Ball that presented the visitors with a first down at East Hampton’s 38, ran for a 62-yard touchdown on the next play, taking full advantage of a key block by Alex Davis. Morales’s point-after kick was good, and, with 8 minutes gone in the first quarter, East Hampton led, 7-0, which is the way the score stood when the period ended.

The home team tied it up early in the second, Coan running in the ball into Bonac’s end zone on a first-and-goal at the 5.

On its next possession, East Hampton drove from its 29 to Sayville’s 30, where, with fourth-and-3, a long pass for Cole Dunchick slipped off his fingertips.

Coan could do no better once his team took over, throwing incomplete on the second and third downs — the latter pass almost being intercepted by Jackson Carney — before Sayville had to punt again. At this point, the livestreamed “Game Of The Week” announcers for T&D Sports Video declared that it was “a pretty good game.”

Sayville was to take a 14-7 lead into the halftime break, driving after Morales’s punt from its 30 into Bonac’s end zone in three plays. Coan gained five yards on the first down, and, on the second, Luke Neugebauer, Coan’s favorite receiver, who had slipped through two defenders, advanced the ball to East Hampton’s 21, at which point, Coan found Neugebauer in the far left corner of the end zone as Dunchick tried in vain to catch up to him.

As for the second half, Joe McKee, East Hampton’s coach, said during the junior varsity game at East Hampton Saturday morning, that Sayville went up, 21-7, “late in the third, and Jackson Carney returned their kick-off 75 yards to make it 21-14. The fourth quarter was back-and-forth, and then, with four minutes or so left, Coan threw a fourth-down touchdown pass off his back foot diagonally across the field from our 15. We almost had him … we were right there, battling with the defending county champs.”

The game proved, McKee said, that “we can play with everybody … our defense played great. Every score they had to earn. Sayville’s defensive line was excellent.”

The regular-season finale at Rocky Point this Thursday, October 30, “will be tough … to make sure we make the playoffs we’ll have to win.”

As for East Hampton-Sayville being livestreamed as T&D Sports Video’s “Game Of The Week,” McKee said, “it’s a testament to our program.”