Cold Spring Harbor football sparked by Sam Bruno, big plays in win over Plainedge
Cold Spring Harbor quarterback Sam Bruno had 1-yard touchdown on a QB sneak for an 18-14 lead on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024 at Plainedge. Credit: James Escher
Cold Spring Harbor made all the big plays late in the game and threw some serious intrigue into the Nassau Conference IV football race on Friday night by going into Plainedge’s Byrne Field and halting the Red Devils’ considerable momentum and prevailing 18-14 in a battle of unbeaten teams.
The game began to turn late in the third quarter when the Seahawks’ Ben Stark punted and Plainedge’s punt returner didn’t make the catch. Alex Vitale made the recovery and the Seahawks (6-0) went 24 yards in 12 plays for a Sam Bruno 1-yard touchdown on a quarterback sneak for an 18-14 lead. Vitale, the center, made the big block.
"When I got free of my guy and into the open field, I saw the ball ricochet off his shin and just threw myself on it,” Vitale said of the recovery.
“I’m excited about this win,” Bruno said. “We came in feeling like we needed to get a job done.”
It wasn’t done however right there. Plainedge (5-1) got the ball back with 4:11 to play and drove down to the CSH 4. But on fourth-and-goal the Jaxson Torres-to-Dylan Fella combination that had worked so well all game just missed.
Cold Spring Harbor is now in a position to take the top seeding in the playoffs if it can win out.
“That’s the position you want to be in if you can,” CSH coach Jon Mendreski said. “Plainedge is a great team and we had to be prepared. But there’s a lot of tough football games still to play.”
Brady McKean rushed for 78 yards and a 59-yard TD for CSH. Fella rushed for 138 yards and Torres threw two TD passes for the Devils.
The first half belonged to the teams’ defenses and ended with Plainedge ahead, 7-3.
The Red Devils managed 111 yards of offense, but twice turned the ball over on downs and once on a fumble. The Seahawks had just 49 yards from scrimmage in the first half; two of their four possessions ended with punts and one on an incomplete pass on fourth down.
Plainedge was the preseason No. 3 seed and was looking to make a statement early against the fifth-seeded and still unbeaten Seahawks. It was looking at a fourth-and-6 on the fourth snap of the game and went for it, throwing an incomplete pass.
CSH’s ensuing possession was its best of the half. The Seahawks moved the ball 37 yards with 18 coming on Bauer rushes and settled for a 27-yard field goal by Stark with 1:58 left in the first quarter.
The Devils were able to grab the lead after its first two possessions ended with them turning it over on downs. Torres and Fella took Plainedge on a nine-play, 63-yard drive for a TD. Fella rushed four times for 29 yards and Torres completed a pair of passes for 24 more. The points came when Torres connected with Jake Parpan on the left side for a 16-yard score. He made the catch near the sideline, juked one CSH defender and broke a pair of tackles to break into the end zone.
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.
