Although it had been over a year since the Harrison football team took the field in an interscholastic competition, the Huskies made an emphatic statement in their season opener on March 20. Hosting league rival Eastchester, Harrison outlasted the Eagles to turn a tight first half into a 45-21 rout.
After the coronavirus pandemic caused New York State officials to cancel high-risk sports last fall, many wondered if any football games would be played during the 2020-21 school year. But when Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a democrat, officially gave those sports the green light to resume competition in January, New York State Public High School Athletics Association and Section I officials were able to carve out a six-game football season that began in earnest last weekend.
“It’s an amazing feeling and I’m just grateful that I’m able to be out here with my brothers,” Harrison quarterback Troy Straus said. “And it’s our first [season-opening home] win since 2014, so that makes it special.”
Straus was the catalyst for Harrison’s offensive outburst on Saturday night, scampering for the first three Huskies’ touchdowns, but it was ultimately Harrison’s defensive play that helped turn the tide of the game. The Huskies made two goal line stands in the first half, defensive back Wyatt Keller effectively iced the game late in the third quarter with an 61-yard interception return for a touchdown that put the Huskies up 35-14.
“Our defense really stepped up today,” Strauss said. “They came out in the second half and really started hitting which led to our success.”
Second-year Huskies’ head coach Jay Ciraco said that once the defense was able to get into the rhythm of the game, they were better able to bottle up Eastchester’s explosive quarterback Angelo Sperandio.
“We came into the game knowing that [Sperandio] was a good athlete, and our adjustments basically just boiled down to doing our jobs,” Ciraco said. “I think early on, the kids were a bit too excited and were trying to do too much as opposed to worrying about their one single assignment.”
The Eagles scored on runs from Christian D’Agostino and AJ Del Brocco while the Huskies supplemented Straus’ three scores with two more from senior Casey Judelson, who finished with 170 yards on the ground. Straus said that spending the better part of the last two years in a triple-option system helped him find his footing despite the limited practice time this year.
“I really felt comfortable coming in but I was also nervous about the first game, which is normal,” he said. “I was confident in our team and I knew that we’d work hard to get this win.”
Eastchester (0-1) will look for their first win on March 26, when they travel to Horace Greeley to take on the Quakers, which fell 20-0 to Lakeland this week. Harrison (1-0) will square off against Pelham, which lost a 43-21 game to Rye.
“We know it’s going to be harder moving forward, and we’re going to keep working hard,” Straus said. “We can’t be satisfied because this wasn’t our best.”
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