Sayville football holds off Half Hollow Hills West charge to win Suffolk III championship

Kyle Messina rushed 36 times for 264 yards and four touchdowns as Sayville outlasted Half Hollow Hills West, 42-35, to capture the Suffolk Division III football title Friday night at Stony Brook University.

Messina’s third touchdown of the second half came on a 33-yard run with 10:30 left in the fourth quarter to give Sayville a 42-28 lead. That score provided the winning margin as Sayville survived a furious Hills West comeback attempt.

Hills West (9-2) closed to within 42-35 when quarterback Joseph Filardi threw his fifth touchdown pass of the game, a 29-yarder to Anthony Raio with 9:50 remaining.

On Sayville’s next possession, the Golden Flashes worked the clock in a methodical 13-play, 71-yard march to the Colts' 14 and ate up 7:47. On the final play of that drive, quarterback Patrick Coan converted a fourth-and-3 pass for a first down at the 14, but the ball was stripped by the Colts' Jesse Brooks and returned to the 24 with 2:03 left.

“It was crazy,” Sayville coach Reade Sands said. “We were going to run out the clock in a wild back-and-forth game. Instead, we were back on defense in the final two minutes.”

And the Sayville defense would have the last say — but not before Filardi made them sweat.

A holding penalty moved the ball back to the 14, and after two incomplete passes, Tristan Vitale sacked Filardi for an 8-yard loss to the 6.

Filardi faced fourth-and-28 from his own 6 with 54 seconds left. His season was one play from being over. That might be an impossible situation to overcome for most quarterbacks, but not for Filardi. He rolled left and back to the right before firing a 34-yard completion to Raio for a first down at the Hills West 40 with 46 seconds left

Filardi scrambled for nine yards and then 12 yards to the Sayville 39 with 17 seconds left. He rolled right and fired into the end zone to Raio, who appeared to be all alone in the right corner, but Messina sprinted across the goal line, jumped and tipped the pass incomplete.

“Just got my hand on it,” Messina said with a smile.

A 7-yard completion to Raio put the ball at the Sayville 32 with three seconds left. Filardi rolled right and then left while trying to elude a horde of Sayville pass rushers. Clarkson Richter, who had just been subbed into the game on that very play, tackled Filardi before he could get the pass off to end the game.

By Gregg Sarra

gregg.sarra@newsday.com@Gregg_Sarra

Gregg Sarra is Newsday's high school sports editor and has been on the beat since the mid-1980s.