Riverhead unveils new offense in opener at W. Islip but Waves fall to Lions, 19-8

The game just started off wrong and Riverhead never rebounded.

The Blue Waves, playing their first game of the season at West Islip on Saturday, came out with a brand new offense. For most of the game, there were four players in the backfield. Blake Carrera and Tyrese Kerr were on each side of speedy quarterback Sharron Trent, who never took a snap from under center like the Blue Waves usually do but rather in the shotgun. Behind him was either Marcus Reid or Ryun Moore.

The new design is supposed to play to Riverhead’s strength.

“We have a quarterback that can run and do some things this year,” head coach Leif Shay said. “We have to find ways to get him on the perimeter.”

Unfortunately, the offense just couldn’t execute. A muffed punt led to a safety early in the game. Then there was an interception. A fumble soon followed. A punt was blocked.

Before you know it, Riverhead (0-1 Division II) was behind 19-0. The Blue Waves did manage to get a score in the fourth quarter as Trent connected with Tommy Powers for a 21-yard touchdown. Carrara followed up with a shoe-string two-point conversion catch.

But by then, it was too little too late. West Islip (1-0 Division II) won their home opener, 19-8.

The Blue Waves went to a standard huddle in the second half because of false start penalties. They seemed to finally click after making the change.

“The game came at the new guys a little too quick,” Shay said. “We have a lot of kids that don’t have a lot of experience so we just had to slow the game down a bit.”

Aside from the obvious errors, the Blue Waves didn’t play that bad of a game. There was a lot of positives to take away from the game.

“I think it was a good experience overall with our kids because they needed to take the huggies off and get a game under their belt,” Shay said.

“Every time we did something well on offense we gave it away or had a penalty,” Shay continued. “We just made a lot of bonehead mistakes.”

They have a week to get things squared away as they face North Babylon next Saturday at 1:30 p.m. They’ll play on their newly renovated home field for the first time.

“We have a lot of kids on the starting unit that just played their first varsity game,” said defensive captain Tyrese Kerr. “We just need to keep working hard. That’s the only way we can fine tune this thing.”