November
26, 2004
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| Dumont's Austin Kane had the two TD catches that tied the game in regulation after the Huskies found themselves trailing by 14 points with less than four minutes to play in the fourth quarter. | |
DUMONT -- For a senior playing his last high school football game, a script could not have been written with a more perfect ending. His team had already erased a 14-point deficit in the final three minutes of regulation, its defense had already made a goal line stand in overtime and Dumont's Andrew Bruttomesso had the ball at the bottom of the pile, its point clearly sticking over the plane of the goal line.
All Bruttomesso and the Huskies needed to finish off a wild comeback and their 20-14 win over Tenafly in the annual Thanksgiving Day rivalry was confirmation from an official.
"I knew
I was in, I was just making sure that they (the officials) knew. I kept saying
I'm in the end zone, I'm in the end zone," said Bruttomesso, who got what
he was looking for seconds later. "It's great way to go out my senior year.
This is a great win and it feels so good to do it with this team. We are like
a family."
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| Tenafly's Greg Edlin on his way to scoring the game's first toucdown late in the third quarter. |
Bruttomesso's score was the last of the big plays that Dumont used to pull off the improbable comeback that started after forcing a punt with just under four minutes to play in the fourth quarter. The Huskies' offense, which combined for more punts and turnovers on downs (5) in the first half than it did first downs (4), finally got in gear on its last three drives.
Quarterback Vinton South completed 3 of 4 passes and added a seven-yard scramble to move the Huskies down the field. His 16-yard strike to Austin Kane got Dumont (7-3) on the board with 3:16 to go in the fourth quarter and then, for the first time all season, the Huskies got a chance to use an onside kick.
As far
as turning points go, Bruttomesso's recovery of the two-bouncer sent over
to the left side by Justin Coca was a key play in the game. Following the
big boys toward the ball, Bruttomesso caught it clean on the second hop and
gave his team, which had no timeouts left, the possession it would use to
tie the game.
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| AJ Letizia pulled in an interception with 22 seconds to play that gave Dumont a shot to win it in regulation. |
"I had the two biggest guys on the team, I had Sean Lissimore and Andrew Nasuti, next to me," said Bruttomesso. "I told them to just lay someone out and I am going to get that ball. They did their job and I jumped up, saw the ball and grabbed it."
A South scramble and a catch and run up the left sideline by AJ Letizia gave Dumont a first and goal at the Tenafly 8, but the tying score did not come until four plays later when, faced with a fourth and goal from the 2, South hit Kane on what the Huskies call a 'Fade-Stick' pattern where the receiver fakes toward the back of the end zone before breaking off the pattern hard toward the pylon.
South
(15 for 33, 202 yards, 2 TD, INT) put the ball on the money and Coca's extra
point tied the game at 14 with just 1:38 remaining in the fourth quarter.
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| Vinton South threw two TD passes in the final four minutes of the fourth quarter to get Dumont even. |
"It was Fade-Stick and I gave him a quick left and then sprinted right to the corner. It was a perfect throw by Vinton," said Kane, who caught six passes for 78 yards, scored twice and had two of the Huskies' four interceptions on defense. "I was thinking, if I drop this I am going to look like an idiot and I did not want that to happen."
For as bleak as the situation had been for Dumont (its first 10 possessions ended in five punts, three turnovers on downs, one missed field goal and an interception) heading into the fourth quarter, the Huskies actually had a chance to win the game in regulation.
After
the Huskies tied the game, Tenafly (6-4) moved in to Dumont territory with
two completions from Jabulani Lovelance (9-for-22, 211 yards), one to John
Henry for 10 yards and another to Dan Edlin for 9 yards. But on a first and
10 from the Dumont 48, Letizia stepped in front of a Lovelace pass at the
36.
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| Jabulani Lovelace finished with 211 yards passing for Tenafly. |
"I was watching Jabu (Lovelace), he is such a great player and he is dangerous, and two guys came out in the pattern towards me," said Letizia, who had six catches for 114 yards on offense. "I stepped to the left and the ball just fell in my lap. I thought I was going to make it (to the end zone), but it didn't work out that way."
Instead, Letizia was taken down at the Tenafly 24 then caught an 11-yard out from South to set up Coca's 30-yard field goal with eight seconds left. But the kick sailed wide left and the game went into OT.
Tenafly
got the ball first and drove it down to the 8 before a pass interference call
gave the Tigers four shots from the four-yard line. Twice the Huskies stuffed
the run and twice they forced incompletions to hand the ball to the offense
with a chance to win the game.
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| Sean Lissimore and the Dumont defense did a solid job of containing the Tenafly running game. |
A 10-yard shovel pass to Bruttomesso and two runs by Tom Teel (10 carries, 35 yards), who reentered the game after suffering and ankle injury in the first half, got the Huskies close before two more runs by Bruttomesso got them in to cap the comeback, ending Tenafly's otherwise successful season with a bitter loss.
"All we needed was a little more on offense and we just didn't get it. We needed to punch out some first downs (in the fourth quarter) and it just didn't happen," said Tenafly head coach Kevin Kreso. "We've lost a couple of these (close games) this year and it is hard."
After
a scoreless first half for both teams, Tenafly built its lead when Greg Edlin
capped a nine-play, 76-yard drive with a reverse from five yards out that
gave the Tigers a 6-0 lead with 4:02 to play in the third quarter. Tenafly
took advantage of a muffed punt for its second score when Lovelace hit John
Henry on a crossing pattern that covered 37 yards. Lovelace then hit Rob Cook
for the 2-point conversion that gave the Tigers a 14-0 lead with 10:26 to
go in the fourth quarter.
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| John Henry celebrating the touchdown that gave Tenafly at 14-0 lead early in the fourth quarter. |
But Dumont's comeback was just another reason to keep Thanksgiving Day rivalries in tact. The annual matchup, which has continued unabated for the past 56 years, was almost sent to the scrap heap last season before public sentiment returned the game to its rightful date.
In addition to being a matchup between two playoff teams fighting for third place in the BCSL-American Division, it also drew about 1,500 fans and started well before kickoff with the Dumont players' march down Madison Avenue early in the morning.
"I live in this town and when you hear from the people in town how much it means to them, tradition is more important, in my opinion, than getting a week off before the state finals," said Dumont head coach Jim Davidson. "It's still about community as far as I am concerned."
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