Westhampton Beach Football Takes Care of East Islip, Setting Up Showdown of Undefeated Teams This Week

Ever since the East Islip football team moved down to Division III from Division II in 2015 due to a decrease in its enrollment, it’s had a strong rivalry with Westhampton Beach. In just the relatively short time of seven years, the teams have played in some hard-fought competitive games with each program having enjoyed victories over one another, both during the regular season and in postseason play.

That continued this past Friday night when the two teams met in Westhampton Beach. The Hurricanes came in undefeated at 4-0, with three blowouts in their past three games after coming from behind to win their season opener at Deer Park. The Redmen, meanwhile, were 3-1, having lost their season opener to undefeated Half Hollow Hills West.

The ’Canes took the latest rivalry game, 20-14, over the Redmen on Friday night, but it certainly wasn’t easy.

Westhampton Beach started the game off strong. After forcing a three-and-out on East Islip’s game-opening drive, junior Kevin Smith returned the ensuing punt to the Redmen’s 19-yard line, putting the ’Canes in good position to score on their opening drive, and that’s exactly what they did. On 1st and goal from the 8-yard line, junior quarterback Will Gambino connected with Smith on a quick slant play, and after Brody Schaffer’s extra point, Westhampton Beach held an early 7-0 lead.

After East Islip had a long drive that stalled at midfield thanks to a sack on 3rd and 17, Aidan McDermott blocked a punt for Westhampton Beach which recovered the ball on the Redmen’s 30-yard line. The ’Canes then drove all the way to East Islip’s 1-yard line, but due to a number of penalties, they were forced to try for 34-yard field goal, which was missed.

That seemed to shift things in East Islip’s favor for the second quarter, which is when it scored its first touchdown of the game, a 9-yard run by Andrew Cooper, and after successful extra point attempt, the scored was tied at 7-7 at half.

Westhampton Beach head coach Bryan Schaumloffel said he and his coaching staff were a bit frustrated with how things went in the first half. The team could have easily led 14-0, or more, but penalties and mistakes are what led to a tie score and close game at half, and really throughout the game.

“We kind of laid into them at halftime because we’re so young. Sometimes I don’t think they understand what it takes to really finalize it,” Schaumloffel said. “The first week was a close game, but the other three games were kind of blowouts. We really needed to step up as a team and our younger guys needed to step up and I think we did that in the second half.”

Schaffer’s first successful field goal of the night, from 37 yards out, was the only scoring in the third quarter, giving Westhampton Beach a slim 10-7 lead heading into the final quarter. Cooper opened the fourth with a 68-yard touchdown run to give East Islip its first lead of the game, but it was short lived.

On the ensuing drive, Gambino found Schaffer over the seam and he outran a pair of East Islip defenders to the end zone for a 40-yard touchdown, and after he nailed the extra point, Westhampton Beach led, 17-14, with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game.

East Islip was driving down the field on its ensuing drive, one that was aided by a few more penalties by the ’Canes, when junior T.J. Hill tipped a pass that was intercepted by junior Michael LoRusso, who brought the ball inside East Islip’s 10-yard line. But after numerous attempts to try and score, the ’Canes were forced to try a 38-yard field goal, which Schaffer made to make it a 20-14 game.

East Islip was able to bring the ball to midfield again in its final attempt to try to score a touchdown to tie the game, but the ’Canes stood tall on defense. Gianni Amodemo, a junior, broke up a fourth down pass with 50 seconds left to seal up the 20-14 victory.

“We made plays when we had to,” Schaumloffel said. “We had a ton of mistakes, but hopefully those mistakes are correctable and it’s week five and we’re getting better every single week.”

With only seven seniors on the roster, Westhampton Beach has a relatively young team with 20 juniors that make up a good portion of the team, some of which have played varsity before, but some who haven’t, leading to some inexperience in some areas.

“Our guys played through a ton of adversity,” senior co-captain Noah Hebberd said. “We made mistakes, just forget about it, go to the next play, and that was just our whole game plan. Play through the adversity and play mentally tough the whole time.

“We made a lot of mistakes, that’s going to happen with a young team,” co-captain Gambino added. “We don’t have a lot of seniors who have really been there before, and there’s JV kids coming up, so mistakes are going to happen. We just have to go to the next play and move forward.”

East Islip, as it has in the past, used a two-prong approach at the quarterback position, one senior co-captain and linebacker Luke Kilroy said the team was ready for.

“All week in practice, we were running a set for the running quarterback and a set for the passing quarterback, so we were kind of prepared for that,” he said. “Halftime we made some adjustments downstairs on the white board and came out better in the second half.”

By improving to 5-0, Westhampton Beach secured its spot in the Suffolk County Division III playoffs, but Schaumloffel basically sidestepped that fact and said his focus is on this upcoming Friday night’s 6 p.m. game, the regular-season home finale, against Hills West, one of three remaining undefeated teams in the division along with the ’Canes and Sayville.

“We have to get a little healthier, we have to get better and we have to get mentally tougher and we have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot,” Schaumloffel said. “I think we’re scrappy, and I’m hoping we get a little scrappier and tougher each week. I’m looking forward to next week. I’m looking forward to Monday practice.

“We’re focused on Hills West right now,” Gambino added. “We’re going straight to them because they’re a great team, we’re a great team and I think we can compete and we’re going to go hard in practice and move on to the next game.”