By Steven Zaitz
A cold and blustery night at LaValle Stadium on Saturday night, turned colder for the Ward Melville Patriots, as they were thumped by William Floyd 34-6 in the Suffolk County Conference I championship football game.
Floyd’s star running back Ja’Quan Thomas ran for 261 yards and five touchdowns and he delivered the keynote of the game, running for 45 yards on his first touch and then punching it in two plays later that gave the Colonials a 7-0 just three and a half minutes of the game. This early display by the Colonial junior was a microcosm of what he has done to opponents all year – use both his breakaway speed and bowling ball power to lead all of Long Island in rushing yardage with 2,322.
Ward Melville sophomore QB Hudson Philbrick, who emerged as one of Suffolk County’s premier passers in 2024, was adversely affected by the stiff headwind at the start. The Patriots gained only one first down on their first two drives, and with good field position, Thomas took advantage on both occasions. He gave Floyd a 14-0 lead to close out the quarter and the Colonials had effectively landed the first two haymakers of the game. When Philbrick threw an interception on his third possession, Floyd looked to land another.
But something happened on the way to Thomas’s third trip to the end zone. Ward Melville’s sophomore Swiss Army Knife Joe Karpowicz, who plays defensive back, punter, kick returner, receiver, and running back, recovered a fumble in his own end zone that prevented Floyd from taking what might have been an insurmountable three-touchdown lead to start the second quarter.
With renewed vigor, aided and abetted by a 54-yard run by WM running back Joey Benedetto, Karpowicz ran in a direct snap from one yard out with eight minutes left in the second quarter. Benedetto finished the game with 176 yards on 28 carries – and in half where they thoroughly dominated territorially, Ward Melville went into the locker room with only a palatable 14-6 deficit.
The second half would prove much less palatable, especially the first 180 seconds of play
After recovering a fumble deep in Floyd territory on the opening kickoff, Philbrick threw his second interception of the night, and any momentum that Ward Melville mustered from their takeaway was snuffed out.
But things would get worse for the Pats very quickly.
On the next play from scrimmage, Thomas galloped 72 yards into the endzone for his third TD of the night and a 20-6 Colonial lead.
“Ja’Quan is a great player,” said Ward Melville DL Nate Wain. “He is different from the other backs that we have faced because he runs with both tremendous speed and strength.”
Thomas would show that power burst after Ward Melville fumbled the ensuing kickoff, barreling over would-be tacklers on a ten-yard run to get the ball to the one and then taking it in two plays later. In a flash, the score was 27-6 with less than three minutes gone by in the third quarter – and the rest of the game was rendered a freezing formality.
“All good things come to an end”, said the senior Wain. “We left it all on the field today and while we may have lost the game, we won in heart, unity, and brotherhood. Every step we took together and every challenge we faced, they made us stronger as a team and I think I can speak for all the seniors, when I say that we will remember these experiences forever.”
One of those positive experiences was the 22-21 victory over Floyd in the regular season and the two playoff wins this year that sent them to Stony Brook for the Suffolk County finals. But for this night, especially the 15 or so seniors who played in their final high school football game, it was much colder and sadder than the Patriots would have hoped.
