Here’s more fun with numbers, courtesy of stat man Andy Slawson. The Nassau football semifinals kick off Thursday with Conference I games at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium.

Ever wonder about the man calling the shots on the sidelines? Here are the career won-loss records of the coaches still fighting for championships. If there’s a common thread, most of these guys are very, very accomplished. It’s little wonder they are still coaching into November.

Check out these semifinal matchups:

Conference I
Vinny Mascia, ninth year at East Meadow, 44-31-1 vs. Pat Nolan, fifth year at Massapequa, 28-16.

Russ Cellan, 21st year at Freeport and 24th overall, 139-73-3 vs. Buddy Krumenacker, 14th year at Farmingdale and 25th overall, 165-59-11.

Conference II
Lou Andre, seventh year at Lawrence and 18th overall, 114-50-2 vs. Jay Hegi, fifth year at Elmont, 24-17-1.

Tom Flatley, 22nd year at Garden City, 186-30-7 vs. Bob Fehrenbach, eighth year at MacArthur, 44-25-2.

Conference III
Howie Vogts, 53rd year at Bethpage, 340-113-10* vs. John Boyle, 20th year at Clarke, 104-66-2.

Steve LoCicero, second year at Lynbrook, 10-6+ vs. Rob Shaver, 11th year at Plainedge, 50-43-1.

Conference IV
Joe Vito, 13th year at Roosevelt, 89-33-2 vs. Lance Griffin, 24th year at Valley Stream South, 92-101-6.

Dan Agovino, fifth year at North Shore, 21-22 vs. Rob Perpall, seventh year at Seaford, 38-22.

*State record.
+Co-coach last season.

Posted by Jason Molinet at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So by now you know whether your team made the Nassau football playoffs or not.You can read my playoff advance here. But there were some lingering questions Monday night.

Conference I
Hempstead protested its 24-18 loss to rival Uniondale in three overtimes on Saturday. Lloyd Martin broke free for a 7-yard touchdown run to lift Uniondale after two scoreless OTs.

What Hempstead protested was the final play of regulation, a 19-yard field goal that allowed Uniondale to forge a tie at 18. According to Hempstead coach Antoine Moore, the Uniondale center threw the ball off the field once the team arrived at the line of scrimmage on fourth down, an apparent attempt to get a clean ball.

Hempstead contended that it counted as a play and the game was over. Uniondale said that’s not how it happened, and with no video evidence to back its claim, Hempstead’s protest was denied.

So at 3-4, Hempstead finishes ninth in Conference I and misses the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. Had Hempstead won, No. 8 Oceanside might well have been eliminated. Check out the final football standings here.

Conference II
This issue was officially called a clarification. Lawrence and Garden City finished with identical 6-1 records and identical 125.91 power ratings atop Conference II. The sides met on Monday to figure out who gets the top seed and a seemingly easy path to the conference title game and who is No. 2 and likely gets Carey in the semifinals.

Of three possible scenarios, Garden City held the edge in two. The most obvious one was to declare the two tied and then resort to tie breakers. The first is head-to-head play. Garden City beat Lawrence, 16-8, in Week 2. Advantage Trojans.

The next two involved the actual permutation of the power points. If you calculate out each team’s power rating to the thousandth point, according to Garden City historian Jack White, then Garden City finishes with a slight edge over Lawrence.

For some technical reason unknown to this reporter, power points guru Andy Morris opted to calculate some schools to the thousandth and simply added a zero to others. The result gave Lawrence a 125.912 rating to Garden City’s 125.910. The official explanation is Morris simply used the “values expressed in the football guide.’’

So that’s the backroom story of how Lawrence earned the top seed and Garden City ended up second. As a side note, White was told the football committee would consider amending its power points system during the off-season.

Conference III
The coaches and players at Clarke and Sewanhaka were forced to scoreboard watch on Monday – not to find out if they made the playoffs, but to see what seed they’d land at.

What game determined their fate? Great Neck North (1-5) vs. Jericho (1-5). Go figure. The game was moved to Monday because of Saturday’s blustery weather. Despite 24 points from Jericho in the fourth quarter, Great Neck North held on to win, 27-24.

That moved Sewanhaka (3-4) into the No. 6 seed and Clarke (5-2) to No. 7. Had Jericho won, the teams would have swapped seeds. It may not sound like a big deal, but that’s the difference between playing red-hot No. 2 Floral Park (6-1) and a solid but beatable No. 3 Lynbrook (6-1) in the quarterfinals.

Posted by Jason Molinet at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With all the hype surrounding the polls I thought it would be fun to throw it out there and have a Long Island High School football tournament. Take the top eight schools in the Large Schools and the top eight schools in the Small Schools and make a fantasy tournament.

Too bad we couldn't get the sectional directors to just have a charity doubleheader and have St. Anthony's play either Floyd or Bellport in the first game and Freeport or East Meadow or Garden City play against either Chaminade or Holy Trinity in the second game. Imagine how much money could be raised for charity. There'd be 10,000 people at Stony Brook for a Bellport-St. Anthony's game. At $5 a head that's 50 grand for a great cause.

But until the powers that be smarten up and reach out let's have some fun. Take your best eight teams and put them in a Division I tournament and play it out. Do the same thing with Division II and the small schools.

Give us the final score and the scoring summary and a five line highlight on each game. That would be four quarterfinal games, two semifinals and a championship. I'll post my tournament results next week. We may print your best bracket with the most interesting story lines just before the playoffs. Good luck and have fun.

Posted by Greg Sarra at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s mid-season football awards time. Today a look at Nassau Conference II:

Coach of the Year: MacArthur coach Bob Fehrenbach has the Generals playing their best ball since winning the Conference II title in 2002. No one expected much from MacArthur, a preseason No. 9 seed coming off a 3-6 season. Maybe the best evidence of Fehrenbach’s success was a failure: MacArthur lost to three-time defending champ Garden City, 7-6, on Saturday. Fehrenbach even made the gutsiest of calls. He went for the win and opted for the two-point play after scoring a fourth quarter touchdown.

MVP: Carey may not be blowing out the opposition as expected, but RB Matt Zaffuto is playing every bit as well as advertised. He’s scored 9 TDs, including an interception return for a score for the 3-1 Seahawks.

Unsung Hero: Not only does RB Bryan DiSabato carry the load for 3-1 Lawrence, he also kicks the extra points and even owns a defensive touchdown.

Biggest Surprise: South Side, a No. 12 seed, is 4-0. Kudos to coach Walt Denton. The Cyclones have won two thrillers in the fourth quarter.

Biggest Disappointment: Herricks cancelled its season. Enough said.

First Half Game of the Year: South Side rallied to stun Division, 7-3, on opening day.
The Cyclones set up for a potential tying field goal with 44 seconds left. But the snap was high and quick-thinking placeholder T.C. Nuehs took off with the ball. The backup quarterback rolled to his right and hit tight end Blake Malizia in the end zone with an unlikely 10-yard scoring strike.

Second Half Game of the year: Tune in Saturday -- Carey at Garden City, 3 p.m. This isn’t just a rematch of last season’s title game, it’s a measuring stick. Can Carey (3-1) measure up to the hype? Is Garden City (4-0) still championship material? This game tells the tale.

Posted by Jason Molinet at 06:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)