The Bonackers opened their football season on the road, visiting Eastport-South Manor on Sept. 9. The Sharks ran away with the game in the third quarter, scoring 21 points on the way to a 28-9 victory, but East Hampton hung tough through halftime.
“I thought that we played a great first half. The boys fought really hard,” said Jaron Greenidge, Bonac’s new head coach. “They were very competitive. They were fired up and confident. Then I think the second-half fatigue started to set in.”
Greenidge, the team’s former defensive coordinator, took the top coaching job this season after Joe McKee retired, inheriting a young team with a lot of potential. The Bonackers are also a small team, which means many of them have to play both offense and defense.
“We have a lot of boys playing both sides of the ball, so guys are expected to take on different roles and multiple roles. I do think that I have to do a better job of preparing them for different looks, and being able to adapt to certain situations,” Greenidge said. “That’s something we have to work on moving forward — just watching film, practicing different scenarios, and getting them up to game speed.”
There were still plenty of highlights. Billy Stern, a junior, is the new starting quarterback, taking over for Theo Ball, who graduated in June and is now a freshman at the University of Southern California. Greenidge thought Stern had a great game, throwing for 174 yards and a touchdown on a 75-yard pass to Jackson Carney, a senior wide receiver and defensive back. Carney had six receptions for 134 yards. Jackson Ronick, a senior running back and linebacker, had eight tackles and two sacks, and caused a safety.
Jack Kamimura, a senior linebacker and running back, is new to the team. On offense, he had seven carries for 26 yards, which doesn’t sound like much, but Greenidge said they came on broken plays in which Kamimura was able to make something out of nothing. He also added five tackles on the defensive end in his first game at inside linebacker.
Greenidge also credited Sully Matthews, a senior offensive and defensive lineman, with a strong performance. “He was able to set the tone for the younger guys on the line and established some dominance at the line of scrimmage, so there were definitely some highlights.”
Heading into their next game, on Saturday at 2 p.m. at East Islip, the Bonackers will look to build on those highlights, work on executing on every play, and better understand their roles.
“I think, you know, it came down to about six plays where we did not execute on our end and it resulted either in a huge play or a touchdown. That tells the boys we can’t take plays off,” Greenidge said. “We always preach ‘Know your job, do your job.’ We have to execute on the back end here and then play a full game in its entirety.”
