Luke Villella, Kyle Scheurer lead Oceanside past Massapequa
Kyle Scheurer of Oceanside picks up yards after the catch during a Nassau Conference I football game against Massapequa on Friday. Credit: Derrick Dingle
The Oceanside football team found exactly what it needed in its locker room at halftime Friday night: a mirror.
The Sailors returned 18 starters for the season opener against defending Long Island Class I champion Massapequa. And ’Pequa? It graduated 30 seniors off the team that went a perfect 12-0 last fall. But for most of the first two quarters, the Sailors were the ones making first-timer mistakes and visiting Massapequa was cashing in on them like an experienced group.
At the break, the Sailors looked inside and remembered who they are. They roared out of halftime and scored 28 unanswered points in the third quarter and then managed to hang on while ’Pequa staged a comeback to seal a 42-39 Nassau I triumph.
“We are veterans now and we didn’t crumble in the face of things like we did (in the playoffs) last season,” Oceanside coach Rob Blount said. “We’d given them points in the first half. We had to relax and get back to being who we are.”
“We know who we are,” Sailors’ quarterback Luke Villella said. “We had to get back to playing our game after halftime. You make mistakes and you have to put it behind you. We’re resilient and that’s what resilient teams do.”
The Sailors (1-0) not only scored on all three off their third-quarter possessions, they also got a 43-yard pick-6 by senior Kyle Scheurer as they turned a three-point deficit at the break into a 42-17 lead going into the fourth quarter.
Scheurer played for the Sailors as a freshman but skipped football the past two seasons to focus on baseball. When he took Blount’s class on criminology, the coach coaxed him into re-discovering his love of football.
“I had always loved football, but I had to concentrate on baseball,” Scheurer said. “Now it was time to come back to it.”
“Kyle might be the best athlete in our school,” Blount said. “Having him back is big.”
The three other third-quarter touchdowns for Oceanside came on a 35-yard Scheurer run and 1- and 3-yard runs by Villella.
Massapequa has won three of the last four Nassau I titles and wasn’t about to easily cede ground. It scored 22 points in the fourth quarter — on Tyler Villalta’s third touchdown run of the night, a 32-yard connection from quarterback Joey Diesso to Andrew Pedalino and a 26-yarder to Frank Romano. When Diesso hit Cole Villalta on a two-point conversion with 2:36 to play the 25-point bulge was down to three.
Oceanside recovered the ensuing kickoff and Andrew Dato got the key first down so the Sailors could run out the clock.
Scheurer and Villella each finished with three touchdowns scored. Scheurer had the interception return, the long run and a 56-yard touchdown reception from Villella. Villella was 9-for-12 passing for 188 yards. Scheurer had four receptions for 104 yards and four carries for 88 yards.
“I liked catching the pass,” Scheurer said. “(Villella) threw a perfect ball.”
For Massapequa (0-1) Tyler Villalta had three touchdown runs on jaunts of 7, 55 and 20 yards and Alex Chillemi had a fumble recovery and two tackles for a loss.
“We don’t always make it pretty,” Blount said. “But Luke is a real competitor and he helped us get the job done.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.