Riverhead Blue Waves win second consecutive county football championship

An unknowing person would have thought Pulaski Street Elementary School in Riverhead was on fire late last night.

Police, firetrucks, cars and ambulances crowded the small parking lot as the midnight hour soon approached. A light misty rain filled the air as cars continued to pile in, one following the other. And then two big yellow buses, escorted by police from the expressway, made a turn onto Harrison Avenue. As the buses approached the school, sirens from every emergency vehicle blared full blast, all at once, spreading the good word in echoes through the town of Riverhead. Those who were still in their cars, honked repeatedly; those outside cheered and clapped. It was all to welcome the Blue Waves back home and reward them for not coming back empty-handed.

“This is amazing,” senior Jaron Greenidge said. “The whole town came out to support us. Nothing gets better than this.” 

The team and their fans crowded around the Pulaski Street School’s “victory bell,” chanting the count to 20 as it rang out once for each point the Blue Waves put up on the board, ending in a chorus of cheers and applause.

Before last night’s Suffolk County championship game against East Islip at Stony Brook University, Blue Waves head coach Leif Shay said, “It’s hard to beat a team twice.”

[Follow the play-by-play with Michael Hejmej’s live blog coverage of last night’s action here.]

Yet East Islip seemed like they might just pull it off, tying the game at 14 in the second half. 

The Blue Waves turned the ball over on downs with two minutes left in the game on the East Islip 16 yard line. And the Redmen seized the opportunity to win the game. Behind running backs Erik Adon and Matt Walter, East Islip marched down the field and into Blue Wave territory with a minute and change left on the clock.

But then Ryun Moore had an un-humanlike series of downs.

“I felt like I wasn’t going hard enough,” Moore said. “I had to step up.”

The next three East Islip plays didn’t make it to the first down maker. Moore had two solo tackles around the line of scrimmage to put a sudden halt to the Redmen drive.

“I gotta give it to my scout team on that one,” Moore said. “They gave us a good look the whole week showing us what they do. All I had to do was react. I made it happen.”

“Ryun’s been up for it all year long,” Shay said. “When you look in his eyes, you can see the fire.”

But nobody could predict what would happen next. [Watch video, below.]

With 33 seconds left on the clock, East Islip punted the ball fairly high and Ryan Hubbard caught it around the twenty yard line with some space to maneuver.

“The first thing I saw was that Steven Reid was holding a good block on the outside,” Hubbard said. “And then I caught it and cut off of him which opened a lane down the sideline.”

From there it was a blur.

“I don’t even remember how it happened,” Hubbard said. “All I know is that I had really good blocking.”

He won the race down the sideline and made into the end zone untouched to seal the 20-14 victory with just six seconds left. An East Islip player, making a last ditch effort to tackle him by diving, just laid there, face-first in the turf as the game slipped right through his fingers.

Pure jubilation overtook the Blue Waves sideline.

“That’s was crazy,” said senior lineman Jonathan Lee, who was on the punt return. “A punt return for a touchdown to win? You never see that.”

“My whole team started running after me,” Hubbard said. “I tried to run away but they caught me and beat me up.”

“I was chasing him down the sidelines,” halfback Jeremiah Cheatom said.

“I’m still in a state of shock,” Coach Shay said. “All the momentum just changed on a dime. It was wild. I was worried that he would step out bounds. I saw (coach) Hedges getting tackled. It was just crazy. But that’s high school football. That’s why we love it.”

Hubbard scored all three Blue Waves’ touchdowns in three different ways. He caught a pass from Cody Smith; he brought an interception back for a touchdown; and then of course, the grand finale.

But nobody was happier than Cody Smith as the final seconds ticked off the clock. He galloped around the field, jumping into who ever was in his way before being lifted in the air and pumping his fist. He and his father hugged on the field shortly after, sharing a memory that will forever live on.

“There is nothing like this,” Smith said. “Being out three weeks and coming back and doing this? There is just nothing like it.”

But there’s one game left.

Next weekend, Riverhead (10-1) faces H. Frank Carey High School of Franklin Square for the Division II Long Island Championship at Hofstra University Friday afternoon at 4:30. The undefeated Carey Seahawks (11-0) took the Nassau County title from Garden City last night, 20-16.

Photo captions, from top: 1. The Redmen can’t catch Riverhead’s Ryan Hubbard as he hustles down the sideline on an 84-yard punt return to win the county championship game for the Blue Waves, 20-14. 2. The Blue Waves ring the victory bell outside Pulaski Street school late last night, when they returned home to a cheering crowd and police, fire and EMS vehicles welcoming them with blaring sirens.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.

RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.
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