By Matt Diano: What better way to celebrate an incredible sixth week of fierce NYCHSFL action than by having six student-athletes recognized for their marvelous play on the weekend of October 16th-17th.
With first place standing on the line in head-to-head showdowns between the top-2 teams in each of the AA and AAA divisions (all four programs entering undefeated), this would be most crucial weekend yet of the 2015 season.
With only two more weeks remaining before the start of the postseason, every game held meaning. Whether you were battling it out to stay in the hunt for a top-seed, trying to lockdown inside position on a top-4 seed, or just attempting to establish some momentum in the hopes of making a Cinderella run, each and every program took to the gridiron with purpose….Here are the six young men who took it upon themselves to turn intentions into prosperity.
David Navas; QB – Christ the King Royal
This past Saturday afternoon, the Royals’ senior signal caller would demonstrate that the bigger the moment, the more he is able to take his play to the next level. Pitted in a clash of unbeatens, the Woodhaven native would find fellow 12th grader, Alex Miranda (4 Catches, 139 yards, 2 TDs), on a 19-yard aerial strike in the final 10 seconds of regulation to lead Christ the King to the 21-15 victory over Xavier to assume the outright top spot in the AA standings…Navas, who was on the same page with his receivers all day, would finish the game an astounding 10-for-15 for 282 yards and three touchdown passes…Most impressive about the 6’0, 185-pounders weekend performance is the fact that he simply seemed unwilling to accept anything aside from victory. Prior to his late game heroics, Navas would twice bring the Royals back from deficits, connecting with junior Tosin Oyekanmi (6 catches for 143 yards) from 40-yards out and then hitting him again for the two-point conversation in response to Xavier’s touchdown run on the opening play of the second quarter to give King the 8-7 edge with just under 9:00 remaining in the opening half…Navas would again rally the troops, tying the game at 15 apiece with 9:52 left to play by hooking up with Miranda on a 67-yard bomb. Then of course there was that aforementioned most significant pass of the game, which capped off a 10-play, 92-yard drive, giving the Middle Village based program their first win since 1997 over the Knights. For his next act, Navas will be focused on keeping his team’s pursuit of perfection intact when they go toe-to-toe with St. Francis Prep next Saturday.
Malik Crawford; RB/DB – Archbishop Stepinac Crusaders
Hyped as a potential preview of the November 21st AAA title game, one team’s ‘0 would have to go” this past Saturday and it would be the senior speedster, Crawford, who did his best to ensure that the program going home with their first blemish of 2015 would not be the Crusaders of Archbishop Stepinac…In a game that saw 81 points and over 900 yards of total offense put up by the two competing schools, singling-out just one player for recognition was a very daunting task. However, it would be the 49-yard, fourth quarter touchdown trek by the 5’10, 165-pound Yonkers resident in the final two minutes that would be the backbreaker in his team’s 49-32 win over St. Anthony’s; hence, he was a most worthy choice…Crawford’s nearly 50-yard TD run, his second of the game (also scampered in from four yards out in the second quarter) would put the finishing touches on a 21 point final 12 minutes for the defending 3A titlists as they withstood a serious third quarter rally by the Friars, who darn near fought their way back from a 28-9 hole at the half, getting the contest as close as 28-25…Crawford, who has seen his role as a ball carrier grow in the past two weeks for the Crusaders, would post his second straight 100+ yard game rushing, as he would be high man on the totem poll with 112 yards on 11 carries, highlighted by those two previously cited scoring runs…Junior tailback, Antonio Giannico, would be a goal line wiz kid, scoring both of his touchdowns in the fourth quarter on runs of 1 and 4 yards…Reigning Player of the Week, Tyquell Fields would team-up with fellow senior wide-out, TJ Morrison, for a pair of first half touchdown passes (23, and 10 yards respectively)…Super sophomore, Atrilleon Williams would pick off two passes in the first half, returning the second of his INTs 12 yards for the defensive touchdown. The hard fought “w”, which is the first that Stepinac has earned on home soil against the perennial Suffolk powerhouse, would improve them to 6-0 (5-0 in AAA games) this season; the Rich Reichert guided Friars fall to 5-1 (4-1).
Justin Covington; RB – Cardinal Hayes Cardinals
#1 in the program, #1 on the field would accurately describe the impact that the senior running back from the Bronx would have in shepherding the Cardinals to a 53-28 triumph on the road against Chaminade to snap their two-game losing streak…Piling up 178 yards on just 13 touches (13.7/carry), Covington would make three separate trips to the end zone, drawing first blood with a 10-yard first quarter run that gave the visitors an early 7-0 lead…After watching teammates, Carlos Fernandez (TD runs of 1 and 4 yards) and Christian Anderson (82yrd touchdown dash) increase the lead to 26-7 at the midway point, the “A student” with offers from the likes of Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Villanova and the both the U.S. Military and Naval Academies, would get reacquainted with the end zone in the third quarter when he took the handoff from the 11 yard line and cruised in for his second score of the game to further pad the lead, 32-7. His third and longest TD of the afternoon would come later in this quarter when he left the Flyer defense in his dust on an 18-yard uninterrupted rush to the house…While on the surface, the one-sided win for Hayes over a winless opponent would not seem very important, a closer examination of the standings and the remaining regular season schedule suggest that this performance was exactly what Hayes needed as they attempt to beat out Monsignor Farrell and St. Peter’s Boys (all three teams owning identical 4-2/3-2 records) for the #3 seed in the AAA playoffs. The Cardinals will have a very good opportunity to take over sole possession of third place this upcoming weekend when they face 1-5 Holy Cross. Farrell (St. Anthony’s) and Peter’s Boys (Stepinac) will have much rougher roads to travel as they play the top-2 teams in the league.
Gavin Monreale; RB/DB – Monsignor Farrell Lions
Speaking of Staten Island’s two-headed AAA monster, the Lions and the Eagles would play last Saturday afternoon with the visitors from Amboy Road (Farrell) scoring the first 33 points of the game on their way to the 33-8 victory. The win in “hostile territory” for Coach Anthony Garofalo’s boys would be the perfect revenge after losing a pair of games (including 28-7 in the AAA quarterfinals) last season to their cross-Island rivals…Playing the part of the catalyst would be the junior free safety, Monreale, who stepped in front of an STP pass attempt early in the game and returned it to the 2-yard line to set up the first of quarterback, Mike Cloppse’s two 1yrd keepers to put his team well on the path to victory…The 5’10, 170-pound defensive back, who came into the game as the leading tackler on the season for the Lions, would add to his quantity of hard hits, totaling 11 stops for a D-unit that played lights out in limiting the Eagles’ star tailback, Bobby Wing (who was named the SILive.com “First-half of the Season MVP”) to 72 yards and no touchdowns on 20 carries. He and the rest of the Farrell D-backs would also hold St. Peter’s senior quarterback, Joe Mazziotta, to a 41 percent completion rate on 10-for-24 passing….Complementing Cloppse on the offensive side of the ball would be Player of the Week selection from the first weekend of the season, Stephen Viegas, who rushed 19 times for 166 yards and two TDs on runs of 45 and 4 yards.
Michael Apostolopoulos; QB – Iona Prep Gaels
The “Air Coryell” style passing attack that has defined the Gael offense for over a decade would return in a most remarkable manner over the weekend as the junior quarterback that calls Scarsdale home, could not miss on Saturday afternoon, completing 18 of his 21 pass attempts for 212 yards and four touchdowns in Iona Prep’s 44-13 win at home over Holy Cross…The “w” would be the first (1-5/1-4) of the season for Coach Victor Quirolo’s program as they have had to suffer through the frustration of playing shorthanded due to the cruelty of the injury bug…Showing the level of maturity and polish that will serve him well, both for the remainder of 2015 and during his entire senior campaign in 2016, Apostolopoulos would have the good sense to put the pigskin in the hands of the Gaels’ two most explosive weapons, 11th grader Rodney Samson Jr. (3 catches for 25 yards and a TD) and senior Christian Nigro (9 catches, 116 yards, and two TD receptions)…Samson, who joined his fellow junior in garnering a high volume of support from the Player of the Week committee, would also be lethal on the ground, accounting for 156 (on 29 carries) of Iona Prep’s 171 rushing yards and scoring two touchdowns with his legs to finish with three scores in total.
Kieran Fitzgerald; WR/DB – Kellenberg Memorial HS Firebirds
With it being alumni weekend and his team finding itself stuck on a four-game losing streak, the 6’1,165-pound senior would have only one objective; to return the Uniondale, NY based school to their winning ways…Mission accomplished for Fitzgerald and the Firebirds as his play on both offense and as a special teamer would prove to be invaluable in enabling Kellenberg to knock off the top-seed in the A division, Xaverian, 24-19 in non-league action on Friday night…The resident of Calverton would do a little of everything for the Kevin Hanifan mentored program, accounting for half of their point total by making two (one in each half) of his six catches (94 yards receiving for the game)in the end zone….Fitzgerald would also make his presence known in the return game, setting up solid field position for the offense by averaging over 10.5 yards on his three punt returns…But alas, it would be his hustle on a botched field goal attempt in the first half that would ultimately serve as his greatest contribution. The seemingly minor play (at the time) would end up being a potential deciding factor for the Firebirds as his tackle would halt what could have been a disastrous 10-point swing in the blink of an eye. Given the eventual margin of victory, this touchdown saving effort could not be ignored or underappreciated.