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By Steven Zaitz

Once again, it was a picture-perfect Cow Harbor weekend in Northport.

The sun was out, the racers raced, and there was a joyous festival-like feeling in the village and throughout the town, with one notable exception — Tiger Football Stadium.

The Half Hollow Hills East Thunderbirds waltzed into Northport on Sept. 17, took advantage of every Tiger mistake, and by the end of the third quarter, had three touchdowns and a field goal against the vaunted Northport defense. It was 22-0 and the building was library quiet.

“We weren’t prepared and lacked focus in the first half of the game,” said Northport head coach Pat Campbell. “We made a lot of boneheaded plays.”

Campbell, never one to give excuses, is not playing with a full deck of cards when it comes to his coaching staff. His brother and offensive coordinator Dan “Boomer” Campbell is on family leave to start the year, and Dave Wilson, who coaches both the offensive and defensive lines, was called away on Saturday and could not be at the game, leaving Pat Campbell short-staffed. He wouldn’t say so, but these factors have put him and his team at a competitive disadvantage from a preparedness standpoint. 

“Football is about adjustments,” Pat Campbell said. “As a team, we need to anticipate situations and adapt to adversity. We didn’t do any of those things to start the game, but in the end, I liked the way we battled.”

Battle they did. After Hills East junior quarterback Jordan Heyman hit Max Futter over the middle for an 8-yard touchdown with a minute to go in the third quarter, there was a mini exodus of Tiger fans headed for the parking lot as Hills East went up by 22. They would have been wise to stay in their seats.

Tiger running back Michael Raio broke free down the middle and took a 61-yard pass from Northport quarterback Owen Johansen on the last play of the third quarter. A Raio of hope?

“I think that play was a good spark for us,” said Raio, whose big play got Northport to the T-bird 5-yard line. “We had that same play called in the first half, but I ran the wrong route. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.”

Johansen punched it in with a quarterback sneak on the first play of the fourth quarter and it was 22-7. 

This Tiger touchdown not only changed the scoreboard, but it ushered in a palpable swing in momentum.  The tremendous body of work and the good fortune that Hills East enjoyed for the first 36 minutes started to melt in the mid-afternoon sun.

Andrew Miller, who was his usual presence on both sides of the ball, engulfed Heyman for a 10-yard sack on the ensuing drive. This sequence of events turned out to be a 25-yard loss for Hills East, as they committed a personal foul penalty on the play.

After a T-bird punt, Johansen, who finished 10 for 22 for 140 yards passing, hit wide receiver Nick Valenti on a 10-yard square-out, scrambled for 10 himself, and handed it to Raio for another 10, and the Tigers were again at the goal line. Johansen calmly took a quick snap and plunged into the end zone for the Tigers second touchdown. A smidgen over three minutes remained, it was suddenly a one score game, and the Cow Harbor Comeback was officially on.

“We were on point and won the second half of that game,” said senior defensive lineman Justin Macke, who along with Johansen, Miller, Mason Hecht, Matt Diaz, Thomas Kraus and Tim Cleary applied pressure on Heyman throughout the game. The defense had four sacks, three tackles for loss, and numerous quarterback pressures. Macke addressed the team at halftime.

“I told them that we didn’t work hard in practice all week for nothing,” Macke recounted. “I said that we needed to pick our heads up, get rolling and get back into this game and that’s exactly what we did.”

Despite the two quick scores, there was still the matter of the home team trailing by eight with a clock that was not exactly Tiger-friendly. Hills East head coach Alex Marcelin knew the tide had swirled against the T-birds and tried to steady his ship.

“Northport is the number two ranked team in the conference for a reason,” Marcelin said. “I knew we weren’t going to be able to run right over them and in that fourth quarter, we started to make mistakes and those mistakes started to roll up into a major problem.  I did my best to calm my guys down and told them to make a play. Just make a play.”

But the next big play would come from Johansen to Miller. As he’s done time and time again throughout his Tiger career, the West Point-bound senior would slant across the middle of the field and raise his right hand to signal to his quarterback that he was open. Johansen found him at the T-bird 25-yard line and Miller rumbled toward the left corner of the end zone. He was knocked out of bounds at the pylon by Hills East defensive back Morgan Taliefero. 

With a minute remaining, Johansen cashed in the touchdown on the next play with his third sneak of the game. It was now 22-20 with the two-point try coming and Tiger Nation in a state of jubilant disbelief.

As Johansen had demonstrated all afternoon, he was a threat to smash through the line of scrimmage for the two yards needed to tie the game. This, however, was not the play call.

With three receivers split to the left, Miller was inside and cut underneath Diaz and Valenti and was open at the goal line. Johansen fired and the ball was slightly high for the 6 foot 3 inches tight end who was only able to get the fingertips of his right hand on the ball. It fell incomplete.

Hills East was able to recover the onsides kick and run out the clock.

“I should have gotten that ball on him (Miller) and given him a chance to make a play,” said a disappointed Johansen.

Campbell does not second-guess his decision.

“We ran that play in practice a bunch of times and we had it down pat,” Campbell said. “We worked on it over and over for just that situation, but we just didn’t execute it on gameday.”

Marcelin was proud that his team was able to finish.

“We told our corners to watch the quick slant on that play,” Marcelin said. “We stacked the box and even though they were on an island, the corners stayed disciplined and had great coverage.  There wasn’t a lot for him (Johansen) to throw to because we executed that defense very well.”

Hills East has now beaten Northport twice in a row, and Campbell hopes there is another meeting in November, which of course would be in the postseason.

“I’d like to play them again,” he said. “If we do get that chance, we can’t wait around until the fourth quarter. We need to play smart football from the opening kickoff until the end of the game.”