Fox Lane Runs Away from the Quakers in the Second Half
The way things began unraveling for the Horace Greeley football team on Friday evening, the Quaker coaching staff could have been excused for expecting the bus to break down on the short ride back home to Chappaqua.
A pair of costly turnovers in the fourth quarter spelled doom for the Quakers, enabling host Fox Lane to score two insurance touchdowns on the way to a lopsided 28-3 victory in a game that was still up for grabs at halftime.
“I’m very surprised,” said the Quakers’ Tim Sullivan, still winless after two games as the new head coach. “I’ve never seen some of the things that happened tonight in my 18 years of coaching.”
His team trailed by just six points as it walked off the field at halftime, but disaster was just around the corner. A disputed pass interference call on Fox Lane’s first possession of the second half helped set up a 28-yard touchdown run by Chris Johnson that increased the Foxes’ lead to 16-3.
“You never wanna blame it on the officials, but that’s incidental contact,” said Sullivan of the whistle that blew against his team on the controversial interference call. “That’s incidental contact, really. They tripped over each other. You’ve gotta use your judgment on that as an official.”
It’s doubtful that LeBron James would have been able to get a finger tip on the overthrown pass from the Foxes’ Nick Tortorella that sailed by its intended target just as feet were getting tangled. Two plays later, Chris Manjuck, who led Fox Lane with 117 yards on nine carries, scampered 21 yards to set the stage for Johnson’s first of two touchdowns.
Greeley did manage to respond by marching 69 yards in a dozen plays on its next possession before the Foxes’ Pat Foote intercepted a tipped pass in the end zone from quarterback Brett Mester, allowing Fox Lane to take a 13-point lead into the fourth quarter.
“That was huge with the momentum because you could see they were definitely moving the ball there,” said Fox Lane coach Steve Quinn. “Had they punched it in, it probably would’ve been right down to the end there.”
Instead of climbing back into the contest, the Quakers wound up having to endure a nightmarish final quarter as Ori Herstik and Teddy Graves each misplayed the football on punt returns, leading to two quick Fox touchdowns. Herstik tried making an ill-advised over-the-shoulder catch of the first punt, turning the ball over to the Foxes at their own 43-yard-line. Two plays later, Manjuck burst through the middle and went 54 yards to pay dirt, increasing the Fox lead to 22-3 with 9:40 remaining.
After both teams went three-and-out, it was Graves’ turn to lose the football. He tried short-hopping the ball as the punt bounced in front of him. The Foxes recovered at the Quakers’ 27 and, moments later, Johnson, who finished with 97 yards on the ground, ran 22 yards for the game’s final points.
“It feels great,” said Quinn after his Foxes had evened their record at 1-1. “Against a real good opponent. This is a really important game for us and I’m proud of these guys. They worked real hard this week. I think they knew that we were playing a really good team and they played that way.”
The Foxes had jumped out to an early lead as they went 45 yards on four plays midway through the opening quarter. Manjuck, who, according to Quinn, “ran real hard tonight,” had a 31-yard jaunt to the Quakers’ five-yard line. On the next play, Joseph Nickerson bulled his way through the line of scrimmage and twisted his way into the end zone. The PAT by Will Quaranta gave Fox Lane a 7-0 advantage.
Greeley’s Herstik dropped the ensuing kickoff, picked the ball up off the turf and wound up fumbling the ball again. By the time he gathered it in, the Fox defense had tackled him in the end zone for a safety. But the Foxes returned the favor when Tortorella fumbled away the ball in the second quarter and the Quakers gained possession at the Fox Lane 27. Jared Slater soon booted a 24-yard field goal for his team’s only points of the evening.
“We didn’t play too well in the first half and it was only 9-3,” said Sullivan. “So we definitely had a chance. We made some adjustments offensively, which worked. It’s just we couldn’t sustain the drive.”
The Foxes’ Quinn was well aware how much Greeley’s turnovers contributed to its demise. “Big momentum changers,” he said. “I think that really was the theme for tonight because that was a really good football team. I’m sure in terms of yardage, it’s probably fairly equal in the game. It really was the turnovers, stuff that doomed us last week really helped us this week, without a doubt.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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