Long Island Championships: 3 takeaways from ultra-competitive weekend
Garden City's Brayden Robertiello attempts as pass against Sayville in the Long Island Class III final on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024. Credit: George A Faella
1. Young QBs star
The Long Island Championships gave us all-star performances from emerging quarterbacks. Three guys whom you’ll see in the future left an imprint on these championships.
Garden City sophomore quarterback Brayden Robertiello was the youngest of the three. He completed 11 of 13 passes for 193 yards and three touchdowns, and his emergence was synonymous with Garden City’s fourth straight Long Island championship.
Robertiello averaged only five passes per game this season because Garden City blew almost every team out.
“I don’t think I’ve ever thrown as much as I did today,” he said after his team’s 31-28 victory over Sayville in the Class III game. “I had a five-pass limit this season. We exceeded that today.”
And the Trojans, who rolled to their Long Island-record 54th straight win, needed every bit of his breakout performance.
He opened the scoring with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Blake Cascadden, connected with Owen Wuchte for a beautiful 46-yard touchdown on a play-action pass in the third quarter for a 24-7 lead and threw an 8-yard scoring strike to Cascadden with 4:10 left to make it 31-21.
“It was a little different throwing so much, but we practiced a lot all season and I knew I could do it,” Robertiello said. “I just stayed poised and got my receivers the ball and they did something with it.”
Sayville junior Patrick Coan also served notice that he’s the real deal for 2025.
Coan dissected what is considered Long Island’s top defense in the title game, completing 16 of 32 passes for 223 yards and four touchdowns. The Trojans had allowed only 60 points through 11 games, and Coan lit the defense up for 28 points.
“We put a lot on Patrick and he responded to the challenge,” Sayville assistant coach Rob Hoss said. “He handled the big-game pressure well. We knew running against Garden City’s big, physical front would be hard. So we became one-dimensional and he hung in the pocket, and when he was flushed out, he found his receivers and made good throws. We were extremely proud of him.”
Junior Nick Sevilla of Half Hollow Hills East completed 12 of 20 passes for 152 yards with two interceptions and four touchdowns in a 37-36 loss to Carey in the Class II title game. Sevilla threw third-quarter scoring strikes of 9 and 31 yards to Lucas Martin to give the RedHawks a 36-22 lead. He could not have thrown the ball better in the windy conditions.
2. What a weekend!
This was the most competitive Long Island championship weekend of all time. The games were entertaining and helped get the large crowds through some frigid temperatures and conditions that included snow squalls and high winds.
The total point differential of the four games was 14. Wantagh beat Bayport-Blue Point, 29-21, for the Class IV title and Carey edged Hills East, 37-36, for the Class II crown on Friday at Hofstra’s Shuart Stadium. Garden City defeated Sayville, 31-28, for the Class III title and Massapequa beat Floyd, 42-40, for the Class I crown on Saturday at Stony Brook University’s LaValle Stadium.
In 1994, the point total difference in the four title games was 20. In Class I, Massapequa edged Connetquot on a last-minute field goal, 23-21. In Class II, West Islip shut out Garden City, 7-0, in double overtime. Bethpage beat Comsewogue, 20-15, for the Class III crown and Harborfields shut out Manhasset, 6-0, in Class IV.
3. ‘O’ puts on a show
The defense rests: Offense ruled these championships.
In three of the games, the defensive units were unable to stop the opposition and give the offense one more chance to pull out a win. Three teams controlled the clock on the final possession to kneel on the final play. Massapequa, Wantagh and Garden City all got critical first downs to run out the remaining time and seal a title.
Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.