Win One for McKee; Bonac Football Tops ESM in Season Finale With Ailing Head Coach in Hospital After Being Struck by Truck

If the East Hampton/Pierson/Bridgehampton football team needed any more motivation to win its homecoming senior game, and season finale, against Eastport-South Manor on Saturday, it was going to get it.

Just a few hours before the 1 p.m. kickoff, head football coach Joe McKee walked out of Wittendale’s Florist after having picked up flowers for his seniors and their parents, as part of the program’s homecoming festivities that had already been pushed back several weeks due to poor weather. As he went to walk across the street, a truck was making a left-hand turn and never stopped for McKee, hitting him and pushing him several feet forward before he landed on his left side.

McKee was taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital where he stayed for the night before being released on Sunday. Outside of being “pretty banged up on his left side,” McKee said on Monday morning that he was fortunate enough to escape the accident with no major injuries.

“The guy was making a left-hand turn and later told me he didn’t see me because he was paying attention to something that was falling out of his truck. He got me pretty good,” McKee explained. “He hit me directly. I actually jumped up in the air and I think that may have saved me a bit. But it shot me up pretty good and I landed on my left side pretty bad.

“As much as I love football — and it killed me not being able to be at the game — I was just praying I had no broken bones,” he continued. “Lo and behold, nothing was broken. So I was pretty ecstatic about that.”

Once word came that McKee was going to be relatively okay and that the game was going to be played as scheduled, news slowly trickled out to the team that they were going to be without their head coach, and that assistant coaches Jaron Greenidge and Jason Menu were going to have to take the reins. They did, and they helped lead what was a spirited Bonackers to a 35-14 victory over the Sharks to finish the season a respectable 3-5 in Division III.

“Kathy Masterson, the athletic director, she just stepped right in, said whatever we need. It’s just a team effort out here. That’s what it was,” Menu said after the victory. “Everyone just stepped up. The boys responded, the coaches did what we had to do. We’ve been doing it all year and we finally put a full one together.”

“We set the tone all year — when adversity hits you have to choose what kind of man you want to be, whether or not you want to fight or lay down,” Greenidge added. “We told the boys, keep fighting. Challenges come our way, we step up and fight ’em.

“Bottom line — we told them we were going to win this together.”

And that’s really how the Bonackers put together their latest victory, getting big games from multiple people, but maybe none other than Bridgehampton sophomore Alex Davis. Less than 30 seconds after Daniel Odell opened the scoring with a 4-yard touchdown run for ESM, Davis took the ball 75 yards for a touchdown, after looking like he was going to be stopped at, or behind, the line of scrimmage.

A deep pass set up another short-yardage touchdown run for Odell and ESM with just 1:09 remaining in the first half, when Davis took the ensuing kickoff 86 yards for another score and to tie the game at 14-14 at halftime.

After a scoreless third quarter, thanks to a Charlie Corwin blocked field goal attempt, Corwin found sophomore Charlie Stern who took the ball 21 yards in for the touchdown and a lead that the Bonackers wouldn’t relinquish.

Just minutes later, Davis put the finishing touches on not only his day, which also included an interception on defense, but for East Hampton when he took the ball 60 yards for another touchdown, giving Bonac a commanding 28-14 lead.

Davis finished with 266 all-purpose yards and three touchdowns.

“What motivated me was Senior Night, the last time playing with my best friends,” he said. “And Coach McKee getting hit by a car made me very sad, so I knew I had to perform well today.”

McKee said that Menu came to him earlier in the week wanting to install a new running play, “counter trey,” he called it. Menu made sure he got the players in the right spots and it led to Davis’s final touchdown of the day.

“When you look at it, ESM had two or three defenders tackling Eddie Cobb because they thought he had the ball. It was just a great play call by Jason and a great time to call it as well,” McKee said. “They also ran a reverse to Jai [Feaster] that got a lot of yards on a play also and he called that play at the exact right time, too.

“I can’t say enough about Jason, Jaron Greenidge and the rest of the coaching staff,” he added. “They all work so hard for me and do their due diligence. Jaron runs the defense and has been a huge asset since coming over to us and Jason does a great job with our offensive and defensive lines.”

It wouldn’t have been a complete Bonac victory without a touchdown by Corwin. The four-year varsity starter and outgoing senior — one of 18 on the roster — scored the final touchdown of the game on a 10-yard run. Corwin said McKee’s accident was a shock to all of the players, but they had to keep moving forward.

“I guess, next man up? Coach Menu stepped in calling the plays, he did a great job calling the plays and it really worked out for us,” he said. “I’ve been playing with a lot of these guys since I was 5 years old, and it’s great on our senior game and our homecoming to be able to get a win with all of them together.”

Thinley Edwards, another senior who was a force on defense on Saturday with multiple sacks and tackles, admitted that many of the players were down once they heard the news about McKee, but that everyone had their own motivation coming into the game and they let that fuel them. For Edwards, he was a recruit over three years ago to help keep the program alive, and four years later, although he’s going to play lacrosse in college, he’s leaving a sport he’ll always love.

“I started playing football in ninth grade. I never played football ever before that,” he explained. “So then I played JV, had a bunch of fun. And then my sophomore year, I was pulled up to varsity my last couple of games, and I’ve started on varsity since. And it’s just been a great experience with all of the guys I’m playing with four years now. We all have a strong bond and I think that’s what’s motivating me and all the coaches — Coach G, Coach Lorenzo, Coach McKee. They’ve always been with me. I’ve played multiple sports with all of them, so it just feels really good.”

As the book closes on the 100th season of East Hampton football, there is a sense of a change of direction from within the program, where the talk over the past few seasons have been just getting a program together, then being able to compete in Division III. McKee, his coaching staff and his players have proven that they can not only keep up in the most competitive division in the county, but they can win. A win over Harborfields and/or Comsewogue this season, both relatively close games, and the Bonackers easily nab one of the eight playoff spots in the division.

McKee agreed that the focus has certainly shifted and that going forward, playoffs will be a real possibility.

“I think it’s been heading in the right direction,” he said. “This season with three wins, the possibility of a few more wins, and I think the kids realize we should be battling for a playoff spot next year, without a doubt.”