One more touchdown and it would’ve been the Jackson Five. Jackson Ronick and Jackson Carney combined for all four touchdowns in East Hampton’s 31-0 rout of Comsewogue on Saturday afternoon. The Bonac defense was so dominant that it held Comsewogue scoreless just six days after shutting out Half Hollow Hills West, 34-0.
“It’s definitely an impressive feat anytime you could hold somebody to zero, and we’ve done it for the past two games. Things are starting to click. The guys are starting to mesh and grasp the concepts,” said Jaron Greenidge, the head coach. “I believe Tiger [Brew] and Sully [Matthews] both had sacks. Orson [O’Brien] had a sack, so, you know, a multiple-sack day, and that’s just our defensive line getting after it on the pass rush.”
Zane Karoussos, a senior and a standout lacrosse player at the high school who joined the football team a few weeks ago, recorded a sack. Chris Smith, a sophomore outside linebacker, also outperformed on defense.
“Chris Smith has been playing phenomenal,” Greenidge said. “On paper, he’s ridiculously undersized, but he makes up for that in toughness, and he’s made multiple plays for us.”
The offense also put on a show. With just under two minutes left in the first quarter, Carney caught a slant pass from Billy Stern, the quarterback, broke a tackle, and ran 60 yards for the game’s first touchdown. Colton Everett added a 30-yard field goal with 17 seconds left in the second quarter to put East Hampton ahead 10-0 at halftime.
In the third quarter, the Bonackers piled it on. Ronick broke four or five tackles on a 75-yard run for the team’s second touchdown, putting Bonac ahead 17-0 with 10:20 left in the quarter. About four minutes later, he scored again on a 12-yard pass from Stern to increase the lead to 24-0. Carney finished the scoring with another touchdown, on a 30-yard pass from Stern, to put Bonac ahead 31-0 with 3:23 remaining in the third quarter.
“I thought Billy Stern had a great day in the pocket. He had over 100 yards passing and was over 70 percent passing. Anytime you have those two numbers, it’s a good day. He did a great job of controlling the offense and making the correct reads, like that slant route for 60 yards. He had a few fade routes he connected on, a few checks on the offensive play call where he
checked out of it and created a different play for himself, and then we got positive yards out of that, so that’s always nice to see from your quarterback,” Greenidge said.
The Bonackers, who got off to a rough 0-2 start to the season, are now at .500 after winning back-to-back games, and the mood in the locker room is certainly brighter.
“The boys were definitely psyched,” Greenidge said. “Everybody was excited, fired up. It’s always nice when you get a win because everyone’s feeling good and happy and excited. The bus ride home was definitely more enjoyable than the last few rides we had taken, and we’re just trying to build off of there.”
East Hampton will try to move above .500 at home Saturday at 1 p.m. against Westhampton Beach.
