Baldwin 2-0 after big win

It doesn’t matter what shape or size they come in, or whether they’re achieved by one point or by 29, Baldwin head coach Steve Carroll is happy with any kind of win. 

He got one in each of the first two weeks of this football season, as the Bruins won in dramatic fashion at Farmingdale on Sept. 10 and then with a dominant effort against visiting Hempstead seven days later. He knows that there’s no easy road to the playoffs in Conference I, where the Bruins were a No. 6 seed in the preseason, and that every win counts the same in the end.

“Both of our games were very physical, but that’s what we needed to get it going,” Carroll said.

The Bruins kicked off their campaign with a thrilling 20-19 victory over Farmingdale, with senior quarterback Patrick Dillon’s 2-yard scoring run with two minutes remaining providing the winning margin. Just minutes before, the Dalers had taken a 19-13 lead in the closely fought contest. But then Trayvon Mask set up the winning drive by taking a kick all the way to the Farmingdale 45-yard line, and Dillon took over from there. 

“We just kept plugging away and then, on a play-action, Dillon took it in,” Carroll said. 

Junior Javaun Tomlinson scored on an 11-yard run on the Bruins first drive before the Dalers “D” stiffened. Nonetheless Dillon completed 6 of 11 passes, including two for 50 yards to junior Travis Hylton, and Tomlinson rushed for 128 yards on 25 carries. The drama wasn’t over until Nate Smith made a shoestring tackle on fourth-and-10 to snuff the final Farmingdale possession. Osama Albangbee led the defense with 11 tackles and four sacks. He also blocked a fourth-quarter field-goal attempt that would have given the Dalers a two-possession lead. 

“He isn’t really that big, but he’s strong and he’s fast,” Carroll said of Albangbee. “In the Farmingdale game he was all over the field.”