Scrimmaging Under the Lights

For those that are football junkies, it was a great night out at Lakeland High School Thursday, Sept. 2, as it hosted a five-way scrimmage that involved Lakeland, Yorktown, Sleepy Hollow, Brewster and Lincoln.

Each team played against three of the other squads in attendance. Sleepy Hollow faced Lakeland, Brewster and Yorktown yesterday. The games consisted of two 15-minute periods. One team would stay on offense for the entire 15 minutes before switching to defense for the following period.

This is the sixth year that Lakeland has hosted this type of scrimmage and its coach, Rob Cappelli, feels it's important to do so before the start of the season.

"Football is really dying out here in the section so we have to try and preserve it as much as we can," Cappelli said. "By doing things like this and making it a scrimmage, where we bring five teams, is good. You saw the crowd tonight, there was a lot of energy, it was like a game-day situation and that's what's going to keep it going. We're going to try and add things in the future. It was a really big crowd, I was really pleased to see that. Us, as coaches, have to do things like this if we want football to stick around in this area."

 Sleepy Hollow coach Steve Borys was very happy that his squad got the chance to work on its game in such a great atmosphere.

 "This is what it's all about," Borys said. "You have great competition, big schools, laying the wood on each other, this is what you always want. This is better than fantasy football, this is the real thing."

 Yorktown coach Mike Rescigno was pleased with the way his offense looked.

 "Justin Mabus, our quarterback, looked good, he had real nice touch on the ball," Rescigno said. "Alex Terry, Ty Schuldt, Brandon Trager looked really, really good as well. Mike Moriarty also was awesome when he came in. Backfield was great and the offensive line made a statement that I have been waiting for. We got a physical offensive line. That's something I take a lot of pride in. They came in and played their hearts out. I am thrilled on all sides of the ball and all positions."

Borys was happy with his squad's play as well.

"We had some ups and downs but overall we saw some people really come to play," Borys said. "Nick Vallo, was throwing the ball very well. We saw some very good things. Dondrey Sharrock, he stepped up, he had one of the best runs I have ever seen. We had a lot of kids playing hard."

 L.J. Garrant, Jorge Berenguer and Kayzon Stovall also played well for the Headless Horsemen.

 Cappelli was happy with the Hornets play on both sides of the ball.

 "Offensively, Conor Prunty he had three touchdown passes and three drops," Cappelli said. "I thought Paul Briggs ran hard and I thought Nick Mariani, our fullback, ran hard too. I was really pleased by that. And I thought Anthony Morelli did a great job too."

 As did the Lakeland defense.

"I was very, very pleased with the defense," Cappelli said. "I thought overall, to play as much football as we did and only give up three scores in three scrimmages and we played, defensively 45 minutes of football, playing half the field, was great."

Coaches comments on opening day opponents

Saturday, Sept. 11

Lakeland at Poughkeepsie 1:30 p.m.

Rye at Sleepy Hollow 1:30 p.m.

Yorktown at Mahopac 7 p.m.

Lakeland coach Rob Cappelli

"Poughkeepsie is very big, very fast, very, very athletic. It's hard to simulate that in practice. They are very well coached by coach Barger, who is friend of mine. The only thing we can work on right now is correcting our mistakes because we know we can't match up with them in a lot of  areas. So what we need to do is play smart football and execute our plays."

Sleepy Hollow coach Steve Borys

 "We feel confident. We know Rye's reputation, we've gone toe to toe every year we have played them. We are very excited about that game and the whole season. Every week is going to be a tough opponent, nail biters but like we said before that's why you play football."

Yorktown coach Mike Rescigno

"I know Mahopac is going to be well prepared. They are a good football team, they are well coached. A scrimmage is one thing, we are not getting any trophies for doing a good job in the scrimmage. We are in Double A, we are playing good teams, not to say that they are better than the teams here because all the teams here are very well coached. But I know what Double A is, I know what's ahead of me and I think the kids do. I don't think they are ready to back down, that's for sure."