An estimated crowd of at least 1,500 under cloudless skies delighted in East Hampton High’s 34-8 homecoming football win Saturday over Amityville at East Hampton Village’s Herrick Park, the scene of fall football games for half a century before their removal to the new high school on Long Lane in 1979.
The game had been preceded by Hall of Fame induction ceremonies at the high school’s cafeteria and a parade down to Herrick along Newtown Lane that was led by the high school’s 80-piece marching band, which was repeatedly to hail the team’s heroics with Bonac fight songs that afternoon.
The Bonackers got off on the right foot, marching 54 yards on seven plays following the opening kickoff, the drive into Amityville’s end zone ending with an 8-yard pass from Bonac’s quarterback, Theo Ball, to Charlie Stern. Manny Morales’s point-after kick through the uprights made it 7-0.
Moments later, an interception by James Corwin put the ball in East Hampton’s hands again at Amityville’s 31-yard line. An 8-yard gain by Livs Kuplins got it down to the 23, after which Ball threw incomplete for a diving Cole Dunchick in the end zone, and, following a gain of 1 yard, threw incomplete for Kuplins at the 19.
Jackson Ronick and Stern hit the Warriors’ quarterback for a 5-yard loss on first down, and Jake Rivera sacked him on the second, setting the tone for the home team’s defensive play that afternoon.
East Hampton tacked on two more scores in the second quarter, by way of a 2-yard touchdown by Alex Davis, about whom more later, and a 20-yard scoring pass from Ball to Ronick. The teams went into the halftime break with East Hampton comfortably ahead 20-0.
During halftime, the band played, the cheerleaders danced, and Bowie Pipino and Sean Lester and the Barletta twins, Caleigh and Addie, were crowned as the homecoming kings and queens.
“This is the way it was every Saturday,” said Larry Cantwell, the former town supervisor and village administrator, who played for East Hampton in the late 1960s. “The whole town would turn out.”
When play resumed, a seeming 54-yard touchdown run by Henry Butler was annulled because of a holding call — just as a seeming 48-yard one by Davis had been called back midway through the second quarter — but no matter, the Bonackers kept on moving the ball and thwarting Amityville’s efforts.
Owen Rodgers effectively denied a touchdown to the Warriors when, near the end of the third, he pushed the intended receiver out of the end zone. Pipino followed with a sack.
A subsequent 15-yard penalty against East Hampton extended Amityville’s drive, which ended with its sole touchdown of the game by way of a quarterback sneak early in the fourth period.
Davis replied by returning the ensuing kickoff 77 yards into the Warriors’ end zone, and a couple of minutes later, with eight minutes left to play, he scored yet again after intercepting a pass at Amityville’s 27.
That touchdown and Morales’s point-after kick made it 34-8, the final score.
As it left the field, East Hampton’s team, which by virtue of its win that day had improved its record to 3-3, was warmly applauded by the fans who had stayed.
Afterward, Joe McKee, Bonac’s coach, who had received the day before a proclamation from the village administration that commended his efforts to revive the football program, said homecoming day had been “everything I’d hoped for . . . the crowd was wonderful, the parade was great . . . everything that the village did in getting the field ready was terrific. . . .”
As for stats, Davis’s three touchdowns, McKee said, included a 2-yard run, the 77-yard kickoff return, and the 27-yard interception runback, not to mention the 48-yard touchdown of his that was called back and a fumble recovery in the final two minutes. The Bridgehampton junior running back had gained, he said, 189 all-purpose yards that day.
Ball, said the coach, passed for 102 yards and two touchdowns, making good on seven of his 12 attempts. “And that was pretty much all in the first half.”
The Bonackers are to play at Hauppauge tomorrow night. The regular season is to end here with Eastport-South Manor on Nov. 2.
