Panthers’ Title Quest Ended by Lourdes’ Second-Half Comeback

Coach Tony Becerra couldn’t help thinking that his Pleasantville football team’s surprising 9-0 halftime lead in the Section 1, Class B championship game Sunday evening was not as large as it needed to be, especially after the Panthers had forced three fumbles and recovered all of them in good field position.

“I knew that nine wasn’t gonna hold,” he would admit later. “And unfortunately I was right.”

The upstart Panthers, bidding to win their first sectional title in two decades and hand top-seeded Our Lady of Lourdes its first loss of the season, surrendered a pair of touchdowns to star running back Bryce Gioia after halftime and wound up on the losing end of a  bitterly disappointing 14-9 decision on a chilly and  breezy night at Mahopac High School.

“Regardless of turnovers,” said Becerra, “we always feel we leave too many points off the scoreboard. And even though nine was a two-score advantage going into halftime, I told the guys that’s not gonna hold. Not against this team.”

Becerra’s fears were realized as Gioia, the injured Lourdes junior who had rushed for over 1000 yards this season as the Warriors cruised through the regular season, was summoned from the sidelines just before halftime to save his team’s season. Gioia never touched the ball until there were under two minutes left in the second quarter and wound up with it in his hands virtually every play the rest of the way as he finished with an astounding 200 yards.

The Warriors, now 9-0, provided a hint of what was to come as they gave the ball to Gioia on the last four plays of the second quarter and finally starting moving up the field. In the second half, he carried the ball on every Lourdes play but one as the Warriors kept possession for all but four minutes and prevented the Panther offense from getting on the field.

“Two possessions the whole second half,” said a chagrined Becerra afterwards. “Yeah, that was frustrating.”

For a while, though, all the frustration belonged to the Warriors, who turned the ball over three times and had a huge defensive breakdown that enabled Pleasantville to get on the scoreboard first as quarterback Anthony Godino connected with a wide-open Charlie Montgomery on a 21-yard touchdown pass early in the second quarter.

The Panthers had threatened late in the first quarter after Pete Salzarulo recovered the first of two fumbles by Lourdes freshman quarterback Dean Rotger at the Pleasantville 42-yard line. Two impressive runs by Godino along the right sideline, one for 18 yards and the next for 14, enabled the Panthers to get to the Warrior 24 before the drive stalled.

But Pleasantville forced the Warriors to quickly punt the ball away early in the second quarter. Starting at the Lourdes 34-yard line, the Panthers needed just three plays to get into the end zone. After Steven Sicignano ran 12 yards to the 21, Godino found Montgomery all alone over the middle and lofted a perfect pass into his waiting arms just across the goal line to give Pleasantville the early 6-0 advantage. The two-point attempt failed as Godino was tackled behind the line of scrimmage.

Pleasantville soon had the ball again as Owen Reda hit Rotger from behind, forcing another fumble that Enrico Ruotolo recovered at the Lourdes 28.  But the Panther fortunes began to turn on a third-and-15 play as Montgomery twisted his left ankle after taking a handoff from Nick Greto on a reverse that gained no yardage.

“We took a huge hit right before the half when we lost Charlie,” said Becerra. “And more so defensively. We knew from the get go they were gonna double team him offensively, and we could live with that because we had other things I could do. But his speed off the edge defensively, we needed that.”

So Montgomery was a spectator as the Panthers’ James Leyden then punted the ball to the  Lourdes 4-yard line and, two plays later, Greto forced a fumble that Patrick Bathon recovered at the 11 with just over three minutes left in the half.  Pleasantville could have built a two-touchdown lead, but Godino’s third-and-six pass from the 7-yard line was out of reach of a wide open Greto along the left sideline.

So with 1:59 left on the clock, Leyden booted a 24-yard field goal and the Panthers had to settle for a nine-point lead at the break. Little did they know, the second half would belong entirely to Gioia and the Warriors.

Pleasantville went three and out on both of its second-half possessions and its defense was worn out by the oversized Lourdes linemen and the relentless running of Gioia. The Warriors almost lost the ball on the opening kickoff, but wound up keeping it for almost seven minutes as they went 79 yards on 13 plays, all of them carries by Gioia. His 15-yard touchdown run around the left end, and the PAT, sliced the Pville lead to just two points.

The Panthers did manage to stop Gioia and the Warriors early in the fourth quarter and even had the ball near midfield to start their second possession of the half.  But three plays later, they had to punt the ball away and Lourdes took over at its own 24 with 9:26 remaining in the game. Nearly six minutes later, Gioia ended the 76-yard drive by racing to the outside and scampering along the right sideline for an 18-yard TD.

The decisive drive was sustained when the Warriors converted on fourth and six midway through the period as Rotger passed to Chris Keenan to just barely pick up the first down at the Panthers’ 35, the only Lourdes play that didn’t involve Gioia the entire second half.

The Panthers’ final opportunity to capture the championship disappeared on the ensuing kickoff as Sicignano fielded the ball at the 10-yard line and picked up a head of steam as he moved quickly to the 30. But he was then slammed from the side by the Warriors’ Jake Wiegard and the ball popped loose into the arms of his teammate, Chris Grevas, with just 3:37 to go.

On fourth and two with 1:47 left, Gioia picked up the all-important first down and the Panthers had to suddenly come to grips with the fact their title aspirations, and their season, were all but over.

“You could pick any one of those plays,” said Becerra. “That fourth-down conversion, the fumble on the kickoff return. Pick your poison. They all led to our demise. Plus, they just started to wear us down.”

So the Panthers had to make the long, slow walk across the field and back to the bus with tears in their eyes instead of a championship plaque in their hands.

“I’ll have to gather my thoughts on the bus ride home and speak to ’em further when we get back to Pleasantville,” said Becerra. “But they exceeded all our expectations this year.”

After enduring a pair of losing seasons in which they won just seven of their 18 games, the Panthers finished the 2012 season at 6-3. “It remains to be seen whether it’s turned around,” said Becerra of the Pleasantville football program.  “But if it is turned around, it’s gonna be because of this group of guys right here, for sure.”