Quakers Fall in the Quarterfinals to Top-Seeded John Jay
during Saturday’s playoff game.
By Andy Jacobs
With two of the most talented quarterbacks in all of Section One taking turns calling signals on Saturday evening, the Class AA quarterfinal playoff game between Horace Greeley and host John Jay figured to produce plenty of fireworks. And it did.
By the time the smoke cleared, Ryan Schumacher and the rest of his top-seeded Patriot teammates had emerged with a wild 48-28 victory over the upset-minded Quakers. Despite over 200 yards passing and another 100 on the ground from Cameron Ciero, Greeley saw its title hopes come to an end under the lights up in East Fishkill.
“It’s tough to match up physically with a team like that,” said Quakers coach Tim Sullivan afterwards. “They’re so sound. Tommy (O’Hare, the Jay coach) does such a great job with them. He’s a great leader and hats off to them. They were the better team today.”
For a while, though, it seemed Ciero and the Quakers just might have what it takes to keep up with the now 7-1 Patriots, who went 56 yards in just four plays on their first possession of the night to jump out to a 7-0 lead three and a half minutes into the game.
Greeley responded late in the quarter when Ivan Corso returned a punt 54 yards to the John Jay 8-yard line. One play later, Bo Phillips broke a tackle and scooted into the end zone. The PAT from Jack Dowd tied the game with 1:50 left in the period. But the Patriots regained the lead on the second play of the second quarter as Schumacher capped a six-play, 80-yard drive with a 19-yard touchdown pass to his brother, Rob.
It only took the Quakers five plays to get even again. Ciero, who finished the game with 16 completions for 217 yards and two TDs, delivered a strike to Jonathan Kratz along the left sideline for a 60-yard touchdown. The extra point by Dowd tied the game 14-14 with 9:23 left in the second quarter.
But by halftime, the Quakers found themselves trailing by 14 points. John Jay scored on a 34-yard TD pass from Schumacher to Shawn Casey with 5:53 remaining and a 5-yard run by Brad Belotti just over two minutes later. Late in the half, Ciero completed long passes to Corso and Kratz, advancing the ball to the Patriot 10-yard line. But on fourth-and-long, Ciero’s pass under pressure to Corso was underthrown, ending the Greeley threat.
Still, Sullivan, for one, had confidence his Quakers could mount a challenge in the second half.
“We played from behind a couple games this season,” he said. “So there’s no quit in these guys. Playing from behind, I’m never worried because I feel we have a good chance of scoring. You look to Cam (Ciero), you look in his eyes, there’s no fear. He’s ready for the next play, and when you have a guy like that you’ve always got a chance.”
The second half began with John Jay quickly marching 64 yards on six plays in a three-and-a-half-minute drive concluded by Belotti’s 20-yard TD run that stretched the Patriot lead to 35-14. The Quakers quickly responded with their own 67-yard, five-play drive highlighted by a 36-yard pass to Kratz and Ciero’s 6-yard TD run around right end with 5:21 to go in the period.
The fourth quarter began with Greeley still behind by 14 points but starting a possession at its own 44-yard line. A third-and-six bit of razzle dazzle with Jake Cohen hitting Ciero on an option pass for a 30-yard gain moved the ball to the Patriots’ 20-yard line. One play later, Ciero connected with Phillips in the right side of the end zone and Dowd added the extra point to narrow the John Jay lead to 35-28.
Unfortunately for the Quakers, their big comeback was about to be halted. The Patriots’ Joe Lisowski fielded the ensuing kick at his own 10-yard line and proceeded to return the ball 90 yards for the touchdown that all but finished Greeley. With just 10 minutes left, the Quaker deficit was back up to 14 points.
“Obviously that just changed the whole momentum,” said Sullivan. “I felt like we had a shot at that point, but that kickoff return killed us.”
The Quakers’ final gasp came with just under six minutes on the clock when Dean Valente’s pass on a fake punt in Patriot territory was picked off by Belotti and returned to midfield. Soon Schumacher was scampering 12 yards for the Patriots’ final touchdown and Sullivan was delivering his postgame chat to the disappointed Quakers, who conclude their season with a consolation game against Scarsdale on Saturday.
“So proud of these guys,” he said. “We never quit. That’s what we’ve been saying since August. Never quit, never quit on your teammates, never quit on a play. And this is such a great group. There is no quit in them. Yeah, I thought we did a great job making a comeback and came up a little short.”
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