Seaford Football Drops Long Island Title Game to John Glenn

The fans on one side of the stadium were chanting "LIC, LIC" and watching the seconds tick down towards a decisive 28-7 win for their team. On the other side of the field, the fans were suffering the pain of seeing a highly successful team they had rooted for all season fall.

Sounds familiar to Seaford High School Football fans -- but for the first time in years, they were on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

The Vikings saw their chance at a repeat Long Island Championship -- and a 23 game winning streak -- come to a screeching halt on the frigid field of Stony Brook University's LaValle Stadium Saturday evening, as the Suffolk County Conference IV champion John Glenn Knights turned a 7-7 halftime battle inside out, en route to a 28-7 win.

"They played better than we did today," said Seaford coach Rob Perpall. "The first half was a good game, but they beat us in the second half. That's all there was to it."

Perpall's simple assessment was on the money. Glenn came out of the locker room at the half and dominated the line on both sides of the football. Seaford's patented running game, which had managed to control the tempo of the game and put a touchdown on the board on the back of running back Justin Buckley (85 yards in the first half, 120 overall), was unable to pound the ball up the middle as per usual.

"We gave them the outside and zoned them up," said Glenn coach David Shanahan. "We felt that if we got them on the outside, we could outrun them. So we were able to keep our linebackers in the middle."

The result was the unusual prospect of fourth and long yardage for the Vikings. Meanwhile, the increasingly confident offensive line of Glenn made it possible for their talented quarterback Ryan Reilly to dash and dart out of the shotgun formation through gaping holes for significant yards on nearly every carry, or at the very least make 3-4 yards on line surge.

There were warning signs in the first half that it might be a difficult night for Seaford. On their opening drive, Reilly -- who was practically the only member of the Knights squad to touch the ball on offense for four quarters -- reeled off runs of 17 and 30 yards, deep into Viking territory, and was only prevented from scoring when Jared Saperstein forced him to cough up the ball and recovered the fumble.

After that, the first half looked like a patented Seaford game, as the Vikings held Glenn to a three and out while reeling off 10 first downs on two series, the second of which culminated in a touchdown on 16 plays while eating up 8 1/2 minutes of the clock.

But Glenn showed it had something in the first half too, taking over on its own 37 and putting the ball in the end zone themselves on a slant pass from Reilly to Kevin Marsa for the 7-7 tie with 17 seconds left in the half.

Unfortunately for Seaford, the second half was not quite like the first. Glenn marched 65 yards on its opening drive on a single pass play and seven straight carries for Reilly -- the last being a 22-yard scamper into the end zone.

"They were trying to take away our passing game, and didn't leave enough people in the box, so we were able to exploit that," said Shanahan.

Still at that point, down 14-7, Seaford seemed to have a chance to be in the game. But on the ensuing drive, Glenn's defense began to pack it in on the inside, and the Viking's grind em up running game sputtered to a halt.

 Glenn proceeded to eat up the entire third quarter and in the first play of the fourth quarter, Reilly once again hit pay dirt standing up, darting nine yards through the Seaford secondary for the 21-7 score.

Though the Vikings, down three touchdowns, fought valiantly to get back on the board after that, it was no go -- and Reilly put the nail in the coffin for Seaford with a huge fifty yard run, setting up his third running touchdown of the night and the final 28-7 score.

"Seaford is a great program, and we respect it very much," said Coach Shanahan after the game. "But in that second half, we were just able to wear them down."