Massapequa football has pride on its side with Long Island Class I title in sight
QB Joey Diesso wasn't one of Massapequa's 30 seniors who graduated from last season’s squad, but still won Nassau Conference I championship against Farmingdale Saturday. Credit: David Meisenholder
No one in the Massapequa football program was delusional enough to think this season’s team was going to replicate the high-level play of the 2023 team, which won four postseason games by an average of 32.8 points and captured the Long Island Class I championship.
There were 30 seniors who came off the roster and just four returning starters. However, this group of players never stopped thinking it could still achieve everything that team did. The four returners — seniors Joey Diesso, Tyler Villalta, Frank Romano and junior Tristan Tarasi — were certain of it.
“It was a once in a blue moon kind of team last year with so many seniors and leaders,” senior quarterback Diesso said. “This team has a different personality — less (tenacious) and more fundamental — and there are really good players who were just behind those guys (on the depth chart) that couldn’t wait their turn to step up.”
Their turn comes in Saturday’s 4:30 p.m. Class I title game in the Long Island championships at Stony Brook’s LaValle Stadium against Suffolk champion Floyd. Massapequa (10-1) has won 10 straight after a three-point loss to Oceanside in its first game. The lone blemish for Floyd (10-1) is a one-point loss to Ward Melville. ’Pequa trounced the Colonials 35-7 to cap the 2023 title run, its second championship in three seasons.
“Experience is one big reason for this season’s success,” Massapequa coach Kevin Shippos said. “Many of these guys didn’t get ‘starter’s minutes’ but they got into those big games (like) the county championship (and) the Long Island championship. The games weren’t over but we’d essentially won. They play like they’ve been in the big games and in front of the big crowds.”
“There’s also a trickle down effect,” Shippos added. “They understand what it takes to get there . . . what the standards are that we set in this program. They’ve learned the value of buying in.”
Trickle down? Sure. But in Massapequa there also is a ‘trickle up’ effect.
One can only begin to grasp this at a ’Pequa home game. Grade schoolers donning the jerseys of the Massapequa Mustangs youth program seem to be everywhere. Sometimes they lead the varsity onto the field. And often they are the water and ball boys.
“I was one of those guys,” Diesso said. “So were Tyler, Kenny Gein and Billy Sciurba. AJ Molenko, Tommy Biggin, Connor Pineda and almost all the guys in my class . . . Wearing the varsity uniform is what we all wanted. I wanted to be a varsity football player my whole life.”
In Massapequa, it’s not that something is in the water — it’s that something is in the bloodstream from a very early age.
“Definitely 100%, it starts with the Massapequa Mustangs . . . a program that’s second to none,” Shippos said. “The Mustangs have been a huge part of our success and we do everything we can to keep it going. We invite those kids to be around the tradition, to lead us on to the field and be a part of our practices when we can. Our team does a clinic with them every August before the season.”
Shippos said there are so many Massapequa kids interested in football that there are four teams in every age group that play in town in addition to the Mustangs travel team.
Another component of Massapequa’s sustained success could lie in Shippos’ policy of giving ownership of the team to the players. At the start of every season, he tells his teams about the standards the program demand. After that, he cedes to seniors and allows them to “create their own culture.”
“I'm just a coach . . . and you try to put kids in the right spots to be successful, but everything is ultimately up to them,” Shippos said. “Football is the ultimate team game. The team goes as far as the players want to go . . . I turn it over to them because it’s going to be their legacy. They should decide how they want to be remembered.”
In many Long Island towns the high school football programs cycle between contending years and rebuilding years. In recent years, Massapequa has largely defied the trend. There aren’t many programs that would be in a position to repeat as Island champion, after losing 30 seniors and returning just four starters.
“In Massapequa, they want to win — it’s in the culture here,” Shippos said. “It’s there in football but not just in football — it’s every sport. The kids here are as competitive as can be.”
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.