Ward Melville football's Hudson Philbrick, Joe Karpowicz thrive against Sachem North in battle of unbeatens
Joey Karpowicz of Ward Melville scores a touchdown during a Suffolk Division I football game against visiting Sachem North on Friday, Oct. 16, 2026. Credit: Errol Anderson
It does not matter who lines up across from them: Hudson Philbrick and Joe Karpowicz are going to take the game over.
The two seniors connected on five passes for 99 yards and three touchdowns in the first half alone to help lead host Ward Melville to a 33-14 win over Sachem North in East Setauket on Friday night. The Patriots (6-0) gained sole possession of first place in Suffolk Division I.
Sachem North (5-1) entered with Suffolk I’s best scoring defense, allowing just 11.8 points per game, and tied atop the standings with Ward Melville. However, the quarterback-receiver connection between Philbrick and Karpowicz remained unstoppable.
“It’s definitely all trust,” Philbrick said of his chemistry with Karpowicz. “We work extra, after and before practice, just to make sure everything is spot on. Having him is a huge advantage. He is the best receiver on Long Island, and I will say that until the day I die.”
After the Patriots’ defense forced a three-and-out on the game’s opening possession, Philbrick took only four plays to put them on top. He fired a 24-yard touchdown strike down the left sideline to Karpowicz, who beat his defender by multiple yards.
“It was very important to us to take over early,” Philbrick said. “We knew we had a lot to prove in this game, and we had to do what championship teams do, which was win by a lot and that’s just what we were thinking at the time.”
Sachem North responded with an eight-play drive, tying the score with a 5-yard touchdown run by sophomore running back JoJo Cannone. However, back-to-back catches by Karpowicz set up Philbrick for a 4-yard rushing touchdown to go up 14-7 with 1:16 left in the first quarter.
On the ensuing possession, Sachem North marched to Ward Melville’s 35-yard line before facing a fourth-and-4. Cannone rushed near the line to gain, but Karpowicz charged in from his free safety’s spot and delivered a perfect hit, keeping him inches short to force a turnover on downs.
“I think that won the game, honestly,” Karpowicz said. “It’s the early things like that which shift the tide a little bit and give us more control over it. Those plays get us feeling like we already won.”
Four plays later, after a holding penalty and a sack forced a second-and-23, Karpowicz caught Philbrick’s pass, made a defender miss and sprinted all the way for a 52-yard touchdown to go up 20-7 with 5:53 left in the second quarter.
An interception by sophomore linebacker Jack Johnson gave Philbrick and Karpowicz one more first-half possession, which they took full advantage of. On the 10th play, Philbrick hit Karpowicz on a left-side slant, and he dragged two defenders into the end zone to complete the hat trick and enter halftime leading 26-7.
Karpowicz finished with five catches for 99 yards and three touchdowns. Philbrick completed 10 of 14 passes for 181 yards and three touchdowns, and also ran 11 times for 64 yards and another score.
“We’ve been playing for four years together, so things are lickety-split between us,” Karpowicz said. “He trusts me to get open and catch the ball, I trust him to put it where it’s supposed to be, and that makes us pretty hard to stop.”
After making a statement with this win, Karpowicz is loving his squad’s chances moving forward with the playoffs fast approaching.
“We’ll be playing at Stony Brook, that’s for sure,” he said of the upcoming Suffolk Class I final and Long Island championship. “Two games.”
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.
