By Steven Zaitz
It was a tale of two Taylors.
In a first-round flag football playoff battle, junior quarterback Taylor Mileti of Hauppauge and Taylor Gabel of Deer Park battled on May 19. Mileti and the Lady Eagles came out on top 25-6, as she rushed for three touchdowns and threw for another.
Hauppauge, with its sublime regular season record of 15-1, is the second seeded team in Suffolk Bracket B entering the playoffs and Deer Park, that last year won only two games but improved that total to nine in 2025, is seeded seventh.
Despite this, both teams were scoreless after 21 minutes of play. Facing a strong Falcon defense and a strong wind in the first half, Mileti converted a touchdown pass on fourth down from the five-yard line to WR Meghan Goutink with 4:03 left in the first half. It gave the Eagles a 7-0 lead that they took into the halftime break.
Mileti, with the wind at her back for the second half, sailed a punt that pinned Gabel and the Falcon offense inside their own 10-yard line. Getting the ball back with good field position, Mileti scored on a quarterback draw to make the score 13-0 with 18 minutes left in the game. She would run for 128 yards on the day on 14 carries.
On their next drive, Mileti hit her center Brooke Tarasenko for a 12-yard pass play and then followed Tarasenko’s lead block into the end zone to give Hauppauge a 19-0 edge.
Taylor Gabel, who finished in the top 20 in passing yards in Suffolk this year, engineered a 61-yard drive to make the score 19-6 with just over six minutes to go in the game. It gave Deer Park a flicker of hope.
But that flicker was snuffed out when Mileti scrambled and swerved her way to a 44-yard touchdown run along the right sideline to ice the game. It was her third rushing score of the game and she was mobbed by her teammates in the end zone.
In addition to her big day on the ground, Mileti was 14 for 22 and 75 yards through the air and had 7 flag pulls on defense. She also had a long punt return in the second half to set up the Eagles second touchdown.
Goutink had five catches for 22 yards and a touchdown and Tarasenko had four for 40 yards.
Defensive lineman Juliana Krause had three quarterback sacks and another tackle for loss and defensive back Stephanie Braun had seven flag pulls. The Eagles will play third seed Eastport-South Manor on May 22 at Hauppauge in the Suffolk Bracket B semifinal round. Deer Park, who won six games in a row before losing to Kings Park in their regular season finale, finishes with a record of 9-7.
— Photos by Steven Zaitz
