Chaminade football finds positives in loss to top-ranked Iona Prep
Luca Smith, left, of Chaminade leads the Flyers onto the field prior to a CHSFL game against Iona Prep on Saturday. Credit: David Meisenholder
Though Chaminade football did not walk away with a win, it still came out with something important: motivation.
The Flyers hosted Iona Prep — the top-ranked team in the state — and lost, 33-9, Saturday in Mineola. There was already some tension between these two teams after Iona Prep eliminated Chaminade from the CHSFL playoffs last year.
That tension was evident near the end of the game, with some late hits, offsetting penalties and contentious jawing exchanged between both sides. Now, Chaminade (4-3) has yet another reason to want more for itself.
“I think we can build off everything,” outside linebacker Luca Smith said. “In my mind, this is a preview of the championship right here. Coming back from the handshake line to our postgame huddle, everybody on our defense was saying, ‘Next time, we’ve got it. Next time, it’s coming.’ They won’t know what’s going to hit them.”
The Flyers wanted this one badly. Most of the postgame huddle conversation after last Sunday’s win over St. Francis Prep was about the revenge they were looking for against Iona Prep. The restitution they sought was right in their hands, as their defense and special teams helped them dominate the turnover and field-position battle in the first half.
Iona Prep quarterback Julian Guzman fumbled an exchange with his running back and Smith recovered it to set Chaminade up with a short field with 4:23 left in the first quarter. The drive stalled, but Justin Jones made a 35-yard field goal to cut the Chaminade deficit to 7-3. On the next play from scrimmage, Guzman threw a quick pass over the middle, but Smith tipped it up in the air and safety Shaye Sykes intercepted it.
Linebacker Giuseppe DeVita intercepted Guzman in the end zone on the last play of the second quarter to keep it at 7-3 at halftime.
“I woke up today like, I can’t wait to beat Iona,” coach Thomas Claro said. “It was going to be so awesome for these kids and for us, but Iona’s a great football team. I absolutely gained confidence in this group, but we’ve always come out and played great teams well, so I was confident we were going to do that.”
Iona Prep (6-0) scored 20 unanswered points in the second half to go up 27-3 with 10:21 left in the game, starting with a 96-yard kickoff return touchdown by Mamadee Sangaray to open the third quarter. An 8-yard rushing touchdown by Guzman and a 24-yard scoring run by Crew Davis followed.
A 13-yard touchdown pass by Chaminade quarterback Sean Carnevale to wide receiver Sean Powers was answered immediately with a 2-yard touchdown rush by Iona Prep’s Brennen Pressley.
Though disappointed by the loss, Smith says the Flyers have something good to work off of for the immediate future, starting with a date with archrival St. Anthony’s next Saturday.
“I think it’s definitely a stepping stone going into St. Anthony’s week, which is a holiday here,” Smith said. “We can use some parallels. [St. Anthony's] Xavier Bala and Crew Davis are similar players. The one thing we could really use in all of our remaining games is the brotherhood. On the sideline, when things didn’t go our way, we were saying we’ve got each others’ backs. In a high-stakes game like this, that’s really something to build off.”
Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.
