Half Hollow Hills East football wins with big plays from Lucas Martin and Noah Chlap

Deficits are rare for the Half Hollow Hills East football team.

Aside from a 19-point loss to East Islip on Oct. 5, Hills East had not trailed in a game all fall. So when the RedHawks — who posted five shutouts in their first seven games — trailed by seven points late in the second quarter and were tied with Huntington at halftime Saturday afternoon, they desperately needed a spark.

Enter seniors Lucas Martin and Noah Chlap.

Martin took the second-half opening kickoff 79 yards for a touchdown to give Hills East its first lead. On Huntington’s second third-quarter play from scrimmage, Chlap jumped a route and returned an interception 47 yards to the house.

The two explosive plays were enough for Hills East, which held on for a 21-14 road win over the Blue Devils in a Suffolk Division II regular-season finale.

“It’s just all team effort,” Martin said. “At the end of the day, you got to do what’s best. Just me giving the team a spark, it kind of lit up that real Hills East football in us. That probably led to all the other outcomes that happened, and fortunately we were able to win the game.”

Chlap’s pick-6 came following a bit of advice from his coaches.

“[Defensive coordinator John] Ruggerio, he always tells me to stop looking in the backfield,” Chlap said. “The one time I actually stopped looking in the backfield, I get a pick-6. So I’m going to start listening to him a little more.”

Junior running back Daniel White, who entered Saturday with 1,211 rushing yards this season, ran for 127 yards on 24 carries. Hills East (7-1) earned the No. 2 seed and will host No. 7 Huntington (5-3) in a rematch in next Saturday's county quarterfinal at 1 p.m.. The RedHawks have never won a Suffolk title.

“We’re a long way away from that,” coach Alex Marcelin said. “I don’t even think about the county. I’m thinking about the next game. Today, we were in a battle. No one on our roster, no one on our staff will even have the word ‘county’ come out.”

Huntington opened the game on a 16-play, 9:24 drive that stalled at the Hills East 9 after a missed 26-yard field goal. The Blue Devils responded defensively, though, coming up with a goal-line stand early in the second quarter. Hills East had second-and-goal from the 2, but big tackles by Thomas Kline and Timmy McDonald held the RedHawks at bay.

Huntington then embarked on a nine-play, 96-yard drive capped by Yasir Jones’ 1-yard touchdown run to take a 7-0 lead with 2:29 left in the second quarter. Jones rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries. Huntington quarterback Jacob Guzik threw for 181 yards and two interceptions and ran for 52 yards.

Hills East tied it at 7 with 28.7 seconds left in the first half after Nick Sevilla threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Martin.

After Martin’s second score and Chlap’s interception return gave Hills East a 21-7 lead, Huntington went on a 15-play, 70-yard drive. Jones’ 2-yard touchdown run cut it to 21-14 with 2:32 left in the third quarter.

Huntington went on another lengthy drive to start the fourth quarter, marching from its own 13 to the Hills East 13 in 13 plays, but Guzik threw an end-zone interception to RJ Peters on fourth-and-goal from the 13 with 6:06 left.

Hills East never allowed Huntington to get the ball back, picking up four first downs on respective runs by Chlap, White, Martin and Sevilla.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity that Coach Marcelin gave me,” White said of helping to ice the game. “I want to thank him for actually trusting me with that type of pressure on me."

By Ben Dickson

benjamin.dickson@newsday.com@bendickson__

Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.