Bonackers pick up another victory

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Austin Heneveld was going down with the football in his hands when he reached out a few inches more toward the front corner of the end zone to keep his team’s perfect season alive.

With a confident coaching staff having given Heneveld and his teammates a chance to win in the final minute of Saturday’s game, the senior quarterback answered the call, plunging across the goal line for a two-point conversion off a faked extra point attempt to give the Bonackers a miraculous 15-14 victory over the Miller Place Panthers.

The outcome, which pushed East Hampton’s record to 3-0 for the first time since 1994, hung in the balance for several minutes after a line judge originally called Heneveld down at the 1-yard line. Following a conference between referees and both head coaches, the call was overturned when it was decided that the ball had touched the right pylon before Heneveld’s knee hit the ground.

The Bonackers withstood one last nerve-wracking drive by the Panthers before the clock ran out on a bizarre afternoon of football.

“It says a lot about our guys—their resiliency, their toughness and their confidence—to come back and win with under two minutes to play,” head coach Bill Barbour Jr. said. “I had every intention of kicking the extra point, but they called a time-out and it got me to thinking …”

East Hampton will enter Saturday’s homecoming game against Comsewogue as an unlikely frontrunner in the competitive ranks of Division III football. The Bonackers are tied with Half Hollow Hills West and Hauppauge atop the standings, and with every winning streak eventually teetering on the edge of collapse, the Bonackers now believe they are well versed in dealing with that type of adversity.

“We’ve always felt like our town and our community—and this school—is capable of having a quality football program,” Barbour said. “And it’s the kids who are driving all this.”

Along with Heneveld, it was the team’s other senior co-captain, Nick Jarboe, who led the Bonackers on Saturday, rushing 12 times for 63 yards while compiling 15 tackles on the defensive side of the ball. Taylor Harned contributed a pair of sacks and Kelly Kalbacher recorded a key interception for the second week in a row.

Heneveld rushed for 45 yards and completed 6 of 18 passes for 92 yards, including what turned out to be the winning touchdown pass to tight end Pete Johann in the final minute of the game.

As a team, East Hampton amassed more than 300 yards of total offense, with players like Jake Beyer, Rob Aaronson, Steven Ward and Brenden Mott each picking up yards behind the impressive all-senior offensive line of Joe Dowling, Joe Lupo, Dylan Greene, Chris Gamble and David Hansen.

Beyer put East Hampton on the board early with a 55-yard touchdown run in the first quarter. He entered the game on offense after Mott, the starting wingback, suffered a cut on his hand that required 10 stitches to close. Mott joined the already injured running back Tyler Buckley, who is out with a broken rib, on the sideline for the remainder of the game.

Barbour said Mott would most likely play on Saturday against Comsewogue, while Buckley is expected to be out at least another two weeks.

Barbour said the most glaring statistic from Saturday’s game was the amount of penalties that were called by the referees: 19 against the Bonackers, and five against Miller Place.

“Honestly, the biggest challenge of the game was overcoming the officials,” Barbour said bluntly. “They called four times as many penalties on us as they did on them, and when it’s that lopsided I have a problem.”

Aside from the officiating—which ultimately came into question on the deciding play of the game—it seemed as if there was as much action packed in the final five minutes of Saturday’s game than in the previous five years of East Hampton football combined.

Miller Place, which fell to 0-3, scored two touchdowns after the four-minute mark of the fourth quarter, erasing what had been a 7-0 East Hampton lead.

The Panthers nearly struck earlier in the fourth, but a forced fumble by linebacker Corey Pawlukojc was snatched up by Steven Bahns in the end zone for a touchback. On the ensuing East Hampton possession, Miller Place’s Steven Biamonte blocked a punt that set up the Panthers deep in Bonacker territory.

A 23-yard touchdown pass to James Wegge tied the score at 7-7 with just over three minutes remaining in the game.

East Hampton was forced to punt on the next possession and poor coverage gave Panthers running back Nick Acevedo enough room to break through on a 60-yard touchdown return that put Miller Place in front, 14-7, with less than two minutes to play.