Glenn Football Claims Long Island Championship

It was the show once again as the Knights ended their season in perfect fashion, defeating the Seaford Vikings, 28-7, to claim the Long Island Class IV football championship on Saturday night at Stony Brook University's LaValle Stadium. Rielly lit up the scoreboard, passing for one touchdown in the first half and running in another three in the second.

Heroes:  Once again, Rielly proved to be the Knights' motor on offense. This time he combined for four touchdowns, .  Rielly carried the ball 32 times for 252 yards in the game.  He also completed 6 of 10 pass attempts for 46 yards.

Kevin Massa was Rielly's favorite target in the game.  He caught three passes for 40 yards and a touchdown right before halftime that tied the game at 7.  Perhaps his biggest play was pass play on fourth-and-4. Rielly was forced to scramble to his right and with defenders in his face, completed a 9-yard pass to Massa over the middle.

"He did a great job of getting open, helping me out and getting in my vision," Rielly said of Massa. "When I was scrambling on fourth down down there… we're best friends so he know to keep his eyes on me, and when I was rolling out and there was a guy coming, his guy left and I just dumped it to him.  We just have a good connection."

The offensive line also came up big once again for the Knights.  Their blocking allowed Rielly to take the ball right up the middle with ease to pick up small chunks of yards on third and fourth down. They also did a great job setting the edge when Rielly ran to the outside

"Whether I was running to the outside, they were walling people off so I could get the edge, or whether it was zone up the middle, they were just doing a great job and had a great game," Rielly said.

Turning Point: Rielly gained 20 yards on his first run from scrimmage, and then broke loose on his next carry and made it all the way down to the Seaford 4-yard line before a Vikings defender tackled him from behind and forced a fumble.  Seaford then went on the longest drive of the game, one that ate up over 15 minutes of the game clock and ended with a 1-yard Justin Buckley touchdown run. 

"They were doing the best thing possible in keeping out offense off the field," Knights coach Dave Shanahan said of the Vikings' long drive in the first half. "They were smart at 4 to 5 yards a clip.  They were ground-and-pound and doing what they had to do to try to win the game and keep our offense out of the game.  So I respect them immensely."

With only three minutes left in the half, Rielly led the Knights on a 63-yard touchdown drive, completing 5 of 8 passes for 35 yards, including his fourth-down scramble to Massa. That was followed by Massa's 10-yard touchdown reception from Rielly, which evened up the score and gave the Knights momentum going into the second half.

Quotable: "I told them that we were going to win this game," Shanahan said of his halftime speech to the team.  "We just have to make sure we keep getting first downs and block them up front.  They tried to play us with smaller guys up front.  Once we knew that they were using smaller people, we knew we could run the ball.   They were trying to use skill plays at the line to put pressure on the pass, but it you do that there's a mismatch up front."

Bottom Line: The Knight capped their impressive season by defeating the only other undefeated team left on Long Island.  They move to a perfect 12-0 and put themselves in a position to win the Rutgers Cup as Suffolk's best team.

Unsung in this game was the Knights defense.  The Glenn D let up the one long drive for a touchdown in the first half before coming out of the locker room strong in the second, shutting out Seaford for the remainder of the game.

Key Stat: Rielly finished his senior season with 1,874 passing yards, 1,652 rushing yards and combined for 40 touchdowns.

Long Island Class IV Football Championship

Team…........….1…..2…..3…..4 -- F

Seaford.......….0.….7..…0…..0 -- 0

Glenn….......….0.….7..…7...14 -- 0

S -- Buckley 1 run (Arena kick)

G -- Massa 10 pass from Rielly (Orkiszewski kick)

G -- Rielly 22 run (Orkiszewski kick)

G -- Rielly 9 run (Orkiszewski kick)

G -- Rielly 4 run (Orkiszewski kick)

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