Bayport-Blue Point continues to be a championship football town
Bayport-Blue Point RB Daniel Aiello takes the handoff 52 yards for a touchdown against Shoreham-Wading River in the Suffolk Division IV championship on Saturday at LaValle Stadium. Credit: George A Faella
Bayport-Blue Point football coach Mike Zafonte recognizes that it was just a game, but he called the Phantoms’ loss in the 2021 Suffolk Division IV final one of the more devastating things to happen to him.
The Phantoms held a 23-19 lead and were 71 seconds away from their first county title since 1991, but a 71-yard touchdown pass from Shoreham-Wading River’s Liam Leonard to Dylan Zahn crushed their dreams.
“We had beat them earlier in the year, and to lose in that fashion was like you just fell right off the mountain,” Zafonte said. “And then I would wake up days after that thinking it was still a nightmare.”
Fast-forward more than two years later, and Bayport-Blue Point has not lost since.
The Phantoms (11-0) defeated Shoreham-Wading River, 49-14, on Saturday — 729 days removed from their most recent loss to the Wildcats — to claim their second straight Suffolk Division IV title with their 22nd straight victory.
“[The 2021 loss] was devastating . . . but we weren’t going to stop,” Zafonte said. “And we didn’t, basically.”
During its current winning streak, Bayport-Blue Point has beaten opponents by an average of 29 points per game. Only one game was decided by fewer than 10 points.
Zafonte has been with the program since 1999, starting as a volunteer running backs coach and becoming the varsity head coach in 2016. The Phantoms’ dominance is more than just an arm’s length away from previous results.
“I’m not gonna lie, I thought I had the answers in 2016-17,” Zafonte said. “. . . And quickly realized that I didn’t.”
The Phantoms went 2-6 in Zafonte’s first year leading the program. Excluding himself, he said the 2016 coaching staff “probably had single-digit years” of combined experience. Seven years later, his staff’s combined experience is more than 100 years.
Zafonte also credited the drastic change in results to the team’s mentality.
In 2016, there were certain games the Phantoms knew they were going to lose before they stepped on the field. Now the buy-in from the players has changed to the point that they believe they will win every game.
Bayport-Blue Point athletic director Tim Mullins, in his 20th year, attributes the program’s continued winning to Bayport’s youth program, multi-sport athletes carrying over a winning philosophy from other sports and coaching.
“[Zafonte’s] just been a tremendous asset to the program, and not so much just with X’s-and-O’s but just providing these kids with a foundation for the future and affording them the necessary tools to be successful not just on the football field but in life,” Mullins said.
“The rapport he establishes with his student-athletes, the genuine interest he takes in each and every one of them. I think the kids just bought in to his philosophy, and his passion and his energy were just contagious for these student-athletes.”
One of the players who has been crucial to the Phantoms’ accomplishments is senior running back/defensive back Dan Aiello. He has 125 carries for 1,538 yards and 23 touchdowns in 10 games this season, but his contributions go far beyond the gridiron.
“He is up there with one of the most talented athletes in Suffolk County, if you ask me. That’s my humble opinion,” Zafonte said. “He’s a player and honestly all that aside, probably the most important thing, the most special thing about him is he is just a humble, grateful, respectful, polite human being.”
Aiello knows his success would not be possible without his starting offensive line of Liam Richman, Sam DeVore, Jeremiah Lee, Dylan Spano, Ryan Bachmore and tight end Patrick Ahern. Workouts and bus rides are split into groups, and Aiello always sticks with his offensive line.
“The commitment we put in, the amount of times we practice a week, the hours we do, our 8 p.m. practices,” Aiello said. “True dedication, and just the heart of this team is really what makes us more of a team, more of a family.”
Zafonte watches the tape from the 2021 championship game from “time to time,” including last week as he prepared for the county title game. His Phantoms will look to earn their second straight Long Island championship when they take on Nassau Conference IV champion Seaford on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Stony Brook University.
“It takes a village to even potentially do what we’ve done,” Zafonte said, “and even then, you need a little bit of luck.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
