Hurricanes Can't Contain Filardi Who Brings Hills West Back for Victory

Heading into the fourth quarter, the Westhampton Beach football team held a 35-20 lead over Half Hollow Hills West, and from the outside looking in, and maybe against another opponent, that 15-point lead would be enough for the Hurricanes to hang on to for the victory.

But not against Hills West, with its shifty quarterback, Joseph Filardi.

The Westhampton Beach defense forced the junior signal-caller, one of the best on Long Island, to face a number of 4th downs in the fourth quarter, but that didn’t seem to matter. When the Colts needed a first down to keep drives alive, Filardi was there to make the play, either with his legs or his arm. His final pass found receiver Anthony Raio for a 9-yard touchdown with 13 seconds left, then the Colts added the two-point conversion to win the game, 48-42, dampening much of the ’Canes Senior Nights festivities.

According to Newsday, Filardi totaled 601 all-purpose yards. He completed 32 of 56 passes for 356 yards and five touchdowns and rushed 31 times for 245 yards and two more scores. Basically, he did it all for the Colts.

“One of my fears was that we were going to get into a shootout with them, and I didn’t think that played in our favor because that kid is a dynamic kid. He’s a great player and you put the ball in his hands, as you saw, he makes plays,” Westhampton Beach head coach Bryan Schaumloffel said after the game. “We had our opportunities. I told the guys at halftime, we’ve talked about opportunities in our Sayville game, opportunities every single week, and we just didn’t seize the opportunities we had to win that game.

“I’m really disappointed. I know our guys are disappointed, but that’s a tough loss. We’ve had a couple of them this year.”

Westhampton Beach fell to 5-3 on the season, with losses to both Sayville and East Islip, while Hills West improved to 6-2. One of the positives that came later over the weekend was that the loss didn’t hurt the Hurricanes all that much in the standings. They still managed to finish ahead of the Colts in power points, 138.25-137.95, to earn the No. 3 seed in the playoffs, which begin this Friday night when the ’Canes host No. 6 Comsewogue at 6 p.m. Westhampton Beach defeated Comsewogue, 42-17, in week two earlier this season.

Another positive for the ’Canes was that senior Nolan Michalowski, in what has already been a career season, had one of his best games of the season, rushing 31 times for 240 yards and five touchdowns. His final touchdown gave the Hurricanes a 42-27 lead with 10:13 left in the game, just 45 seconds after Filardi and the Colts scored at the opening of the fourth.

But that was sort of the problem that Schaumloffel and his coaching staff had to deal with all night. The Hurricane offense moved the ball so efficiently that it would drive the ball downfield and score with ease in literally seconds or minutes, giving the ball back to Filardi quickly. Schaumloffel said he tried to slow down his own offense a little bit, but that he didn’t want to slow it down to a point where it stopped any type of positive momentum. It basically came down to getting a stop on defense, which ultimately his defense couldn’t do.

“We had our 4th and longs,” Schaumloffel said. “We tried to simulate that in practice. We tried to work on the scrambling and what not, you just can’t simulate that until you get the real thing. And I thought we would come out in the second half and play a little bit better against him, and we did in the very beginning. I told the guys, you saw him for a half, you saw what he can do, you saw what he can’t do. You need to play better in the second half. We changed defensive fronts to try and make something happen. We just couldn’t contain him.”

At the end of the day, Schaumloffel said it’s important that a game like Friday night’s doesn’t define their season. After all, there is still work to be done.

“We have a great bunch of kids. This is disappointing, but we’re still battling. We knew going into the season we were going to play great teams and great players week in and week out. We’ve had some tough ones, but we have to overcome it and get ready for playoffs starting next Friday.”