Rain Can't Stop Rams Spirit at Home Opener

It was the scene of a victory.

Clarkstown North's Christian Bouquet just scored a touchdown and everyone was jumping. Coaches, the other Rams, cheerleads, fans, everyone. The night-long drizzle picked up and turned into a full on storm. One Ram fan even climbed on the shoulders of another, quieted the crowd before launching into a rowdy "R-A-M-S Rams! Rams! Rams!" chant conspicuously similar to those led by Fireman Ed at New York Jets games.

Then many Rams fans turned to the North Rockland fans in attendance and sang, "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye." The song was a tad premature, though, as there was still 7:12 to go in the fourth quarter.

While the Rams ended up winning 14-6 for their first victory over North Rockland since 1979, the Red Raiders came close enough to making a comeback that the North fans might want to think again before holding a sing-a-long with more than half of a quarter left to play.

"This win was for the Clarkstown North community, for the football program," North Coach Joe Trongone said.

Right after the song, North Rockland (0-2) came out and capped an 11-play drive with a field goal, putting the Red Raiders down 14-6 with 5:17 to go. The kickoff placed the Rams (2-0) on their own 20-yard line, and the drive got off to an ominous start after Rams quarterback Luke Sullivan fumbled the snap, but fell right back on the ball to retain possession.

Things picked up after that for North, though, as sophomore Billy Delay took a handoff to the left side, saw a bunch of Red Raiders and cut back to the right, running the length of the field horizontally before darting up field and rushing for well more than a first down. Bouquet ran for five yards on the ensuing first down, and then Tareek Turner run to the right side for a first down on a six-yard carry, the last two of which he had Red Raider defenders hanging off of him.

But then the Rams offense went stagnant. Two carries netted about a yard, setting up third down. Sullivan dropped the snap again but recovered, and the Rams were forced to punt it away with 1:57 to go in the game, but things still worsened for North. The snap flew high over the out-stretched arms of punter Jon Feinberg and into Rams territory. North recovered the fumble on its own 35-yard line, but it was still North Rockland's ball.

North Rockland quarterback Matt Lonergan came out and completed the first pass of the drive, but on second down was sacked by Phil Stark setting up third-and-nine. Lonergan completed a pass to Terrell Smith right at the first down marker, and the Red Raiders were awarded the first down. On first down, Lonergan overthrew his receiver, and one second down threw wide of a diving Gavin Maher.

Lonergan went back to his favorite target Smith on third down, chucking a ball deep toward the end zone. Smith leapt high above the two nearest North defenders, hauling in the ball while being hit in mid-air and holding onto it as he crashed down on his side against the turf.

The Red Raiders were inching closer to a comeback, positioned on the Rams 2-yard line with 47 seconds to go in the game. After running up the line of scrimmage, Lonergan spiked the ball on first down, and threw incomplete again to Maher on the left side of the end zone on second down.

On third down, Lonergan rolled to his right and threw a pass knocked down by Turner, setting up fourth-and-goal from the two. Once again, Lonergan rolled to his right, this time throwing into the end zone, but his pass was knocked down by the Rams' Mike Paolino, who almost intercepted the pass.

"Mike made a big play in the end zone," Trongone said. "The whole defense really stepped up on that last drive."

After Sullivan took a knee, the Rams fans counted down with the clock and a few players dumped their jugs of water onto Trongone.

"It's for the kids on the team," Trongone said. "We didn't coach this game or approach it any differently than any other game just because we haven't beaten them in awhile."

North Rockland started the scoring on its first drive of the game, kicking a field goal to go up 3-0 with 5:30 to go in the first quarter. After that, though, the Rams got a good deal of help from Tom O'Riordan, North Rockland's kicker. The senior missed three field goal attempts on the day, although it was actually four missed kicks. On North Rockland's first drive of the second half, he missed a field goal, but the Rams were called for roughing the kicker and O'Riordan got another chance from five yards closer but missed that one as well.

The Rams hurt themselves at times also, though. North committed six penalties in the game, including two that erased first downs while the Rams had the ball.

"Early on, we had a bunch of really bad penalties. As a t-wing offense, we have to be really disciplined," Trongone said. "We were able to play through the penalties, and not let them come back to hurt us too bad."

On offense, for the second straight game the Rams used a solid running attack en route to victory. Last week, Trongone said the Rams ran it primarily because they built up a large lead early. Thursday night, the rain played a factor into the primary use of the ground game, but there were another reason for the run-heavy play calling. It worked.

"Our running game was big tonight," Trongone said. "We ran it with five different guys, and all of them hit guys and kept going to run for some extra yards."

Besides Bouquet, Turner and Delay, Dan Macalena and Brian Rinciari also recorded multiple carries. Sullivan even left the pocket a few times for positive gains, including a four-yard run on North's second drive of the game to get the Rams onto North Rockland's 1-yard line. Two plays later, he held onto it for a quarterback sneak that resulted in North's first touchdown of the game and a 7-3 lead the Rams didn't relinquish.

"Not everyone will see it because we didn't throw too much tonight, but Luke did a tremendous job," Trongone said. "He really led the team tonight."

The Rams are off until Sept. 24 when they play host to Mahopac High School at 7 p.m. North Rockland returns home on Sept. 25 to play Suffern.