Eagles soar for first time in almost two full years

It has been 22 months since the Fieldston football team had tasted victory, but the wait is finally over.

The Eagles got touchdowns from Tyler Kemp, Josh Godosky and Kyron Thomas as the team jumped to a 20-0 lead and cruised to a 20-6 victory over Rye Neck High School on Saturday. So ends the nine-game losing streak that began with the final game of the 2014 season.

“It was nice. I forgot what it felt like,” Fieldston had coach Gus Ornstein said. “The kids were fired up and the coaching staff had a sense of relief as we get [the program] back to where we want it. It was huge for us to start out with a win and put that losing streak to bed.”

Fieldston got on the board twice in the first half, with Kemp scoring on a 20-yard run to get things started for the Eagles. The lead increased just before halftime when Godosky bulled his way in from three yards out for a touchdown on the final play of the first half for a 13-0 cushion.   

The Eagles got the ball first in the second half and on their first play when quarterback Jesse Cooper-Leary found Thomas on a 50-yard hitch-and-go pass that boosted Fieldston’s lead to 20-0 and Rye Neck never threatened after that.  

It was a stark contrast from a young Fieldston team that went winless in 2015.

“I thought we looked very good in our scrimmage last week and I think we saw the benefits of playing so many young guys last year,” Ornstein said. “I was talking with one of my assistants, Randy [Slaughter], and we were saying it was amazing how many guys on defense had played last year. It was such a difference. They were flying around, they were more physical and more aggressive. The tentativeness that came with being so young last year was gone.”

Fieldston will try to make it two in a row when it travels to Tuckahoe Saturday for a 1 p.m. contest. But first, Ornstein and his team will revel in their victory for a little while.

“It felt good, I’ll tell you that much,” Ornstein said.

Kennedy 14,
Boys & Girls 12 (OT)

It has been well-documented how much turmoil the John F. Kennedy Campus Knights are enduring this season, after their long-time head coach Andy Lancberg decided to step away from the program while he deals with undisclosed personal matters. The move left his friend and former assistant coach Augie Tieri to run the Knights this season.

But the Knights gave Tieri — and Lancberg — the best opening-day present they could when they travelled to Brooklyn and came home with a 14-12 overtime victory over Boys and Girls High School. It made for a nice ride home to the Bronx for Tieri and the Knights – even if the new head coach was not entirely enthralled with his team’s play in the win.

“Genuinely it feels great to come out and get my first ‘W,’ especially on the road and with all the hardship we’ve been dealing with this season,” Tieri said. “But I’m not remotely satisfied. It’s not a victory I feel like celebrating right now, to be quite frank. I just don’t feel like we played our best and gave our best effort.”

The game was tied at 0-0 at the half before Chizurum Umunakwe scored on a 65-yard run on the first play of the second half for a 6-0 Kennedy lead.

“He demanded the ball in the second half when he didn’t get it in the first half, and the first time he touched it he ran 65 yards for a touchdown,” Tieri said.

But when Boys and Girls tied the game and regulation ended with the teams deadlocked at 6-6, it was off to overtime, in which Jahmari Hunter scored a touchdown and quarterback P.J. Franklyn added the two-point conversion for what proved to be the winning points. Boys and Girls scored on its first possession of overtime as well, but the Knights’ defense, led by Tyreek Noble, stopped the Kangaroos from adding the two-point conversion and Kennedy came away with the victory.  

“The defense was phenomenal the whole game,” Tieri said. “They were the difference. But the game was closer than it should have been, so I feel like we need to go back to the drawing board and work on a lot of things we need to fix. If we play the way we played this week next week against Brooklyn Tech, we’ll lose that game.”

Tieri said he spoke to Lancberg following the game.

“I talked to Andy and he congratulated me on the win right away,” Tieri said.

Clinton 20,
Fort Hamilton 18 

The Governors gave returning head coach Howard Langley a road victory in their season opener, as Clinton knocked off the Tigers in Brooklyn. With Jailen Nias and Jaron Johnson each rushing for 81 yards and a touchdown, the Governors rolled up 180 yards on the ground. Clinton quarterback Luis Ortiz also got in on the scoring action when he tossed a touchdown pass to Edwin Rosario to complete the Clinton scoring. Nias was also solid on defense as he posted a team-best nine tackles, including one for loss.

The Governors road odyssey to open the season continues this weekend, when they travel to Queens to take on Flushing High in an 11 a.m. contest.