Not unexpectedly, the young East Hampton High School football team, the seventh seed in the county’s Division III tournament, was stampeded by the second-seeded Half Hollow Hills West Colts in a quarterfinal matchup on the Colts’ field Saturday, most of the damage in the 52-6 rout being done by a senior quartet led by the Syracuse-bound quarterback, Joseph Filardi.
The home team scored at will, beginning with a 68-yard, eight-play drive that opened the game. With a first-and-10 at the 20, Filardi connected in the flat with the Colts’ running back, Jayden Smith, who ran the remaining 15 yards into Bonac’s end zone, a score greeted from Hills West’s side of the field by recorded whinnying, a gentle neighing that was to be oft-repeated — to the point, one spectator said, where it got old — as the afternoon wore on.
East Hampton went three-and-out the first time it had the ball, carries by Alex Davis and Jackson Ronick going for naught before Theo Ball, East Hampton’s quarterback, was sacked eight yards from the goal line. Manny Morales punted to the 40 out of the end zone, at which point the Colts launched another scoring drive, this one the result of a pass to Anthony Raio, who, after breaking free from a would-be tackler at the 10-yard line, ran with the ball into the end zone. The extra-point kick by Ryan Levy, who was to be flawless that day, upped the lead to 14-0.
Following the kickoff, 5 and 6-yard carries by Davis resulted in East Hampton’s first down, at its 27, after which he gained 4 more. But, in looking to cut back on the next play, the Bridgehampton junior running back was stymied, and, facing a third-and-6, Ball was sacked again, prompting a punt by Morales that Raio returned for a touchdown from the Colts’ 40 as the second quarter began. And so it went.
It was 38-0 at the half, the Colts, whinnying evermore, having tacked on two more touchdowns, by Smith, the result of a 2-yard carry, and by Raio, the result of an 80-yard catch-and-run, to go with a 37-yard field goal by Levy.
The home team kicked off to begin the third quarter, but Ball, facing a third-and-9 at his 26, was chased and intercepted at the 30 by Raio, whose subsequent score made it 45-0 Hills West. Jesse Brooks gathered in a Filardi pass from the Hills 40 midway through the third for the winners’ seventh and final touchdown.
East Hampton finished in encouraging fashion, however, after having taken possession at its 16 following a punt. A 26-yard pass from Ball to Cole Dunchick began the drive, which continued thanks largely to the spirited running of Jai Feaster, Davis’s Bridgehampton classmate, who scored from the 2-yard line just before the game ended.
Thus Hills West improved to 8-1 and East Hampton finished at 5-4, a significant feat inasmuch as an East Hampton football team had not done as well since 2009.
Joe McKee, who has revived the program here over the course of the past decade, said afterward that he had started only two seniors that day, one on offense and one on defense. He told his young charges that Hills West had not been that much better than they, and that, if they continued to work hard, there would be good things on the horizon.
“The future,” McKee said after having been hugged by East Hampton’s athletic director, Kathy Masterson, “looks pretty good.”
