Football playoffs: Defense shines as Riverhead defeats Deer Park, 23-6

Around 30 minutes before the start of the Riverhead vs. Deer Park qualifying playoff game, the Falcons were warming up on the field.

Two coaches were talking on the Deer Park sidelines.

“What — does Riverhead practice indoors?” One asked the other.

“No. They play a song and then they walk to the field from over there or whatever,” the other coach said pointing to the opening near the bus garage.

Deer Park hasn’t played in Riverhead since 2005. They needed a refresher course on how things go down at Coach Mike Mckillop field.

Sure, a song is played. Then the Blue Waves walk to the field. Then they run through the banner. But it’s not “whatever” from there. For the last 16 times the Blue Waves have done that walk, 15 of those have been victories. Saturday was no different.

Riverhead won 23-6 in a game that the Blue Waves led from the start.

Nico Bossey hit a 26-yard field goal to put Riverhead on the board first. Ryun Moore scored on a 4-yard run before the end of the first half to extend the Blue Wave lead to 10-0.

A key of the game was to stop Deer Park’s running back Jasawn Thompson — they did. The fifth leading rusher in Long Island wasn’t much of a factor in the first quarter and ended up getting injured in the second quarter. There was just one-too-many Raheem Brown shots and eventually Thompson just didn’t get back up. He was on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

“He stepped on my foot on the first play of the game and tweaked my ankle,” Brown said of Thompson. “I played through it, though. There was no way I was going to leave the game. I got my shots in.”

“People thought he was going to run all over us,” Brown continued. “But their offense gave away signs all day. Their guards pulled a lot and they would cheat, keeping their butts down and we picked up on it as linebackers.”

Deer Park couldn’t muster any offense until the fourth quarter when they finally got on the board on a Chris Tevella rushing touchdown.

“That’s what happens when you face the best defense in the world,” Brown said.

Kenny Simco connected with Steven Reid on 56-yard touchdown before Deer Park got on the board. Reid finished with five receptions for 113 yards.

“On the film we saw their d-backs were both like 5’6 so the coaches were like we’re going to air the ball out today,” Reid said. “I couldn’t bring it in every time but as the game went on, I started to hold on to the ball and make those big catches.”

Moore who had a quiet day up until the third quarter had a very Moore-esque run in the fourth quarter. He ran through the left side, found daylight and never looked back, scoring on a 56-yard run. He finished with 121 yards on 18 carries.

“We struggled a bit in the first half because they had a different front line that we’re used to seeing and once we figured it out we started moving the ball,” Moore said.

But the story of the day was the defense without a doubt.

“We had a great four days of practice this week,” head coach Leif Shay said. “It showed today.”

Jacob Robinson and Roger Foster both had interceptions for the Blue Waves. Raheem Brown had two tackles for loss and a sack. Troy Trent had two sacks.

No. 3 Riverhead (7-2) will play at No. 2 Half Hollow Hills West in the semifinals next Saturday.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.

 RiverheadLOCAL photos by Peter Blasl