Elmont's win streak ends

One thing that’s a certainty in Nassau Conference II football is the fact that making mistakes against perennial-power Garden City leads to disaster. Such was the case last Saturday afternoon at Elmont High School.

The Trojans took advantage of some early Elmont miscues and never looked back, leaving town with a 49-20 victory in a battle of unbeatens. Senior captain Chris Mixon scored two of his four touchdowns in the game’s first five minutes to give Garden City (4-0) an early 14-0 lead. Elmont’s Aaron Ruthman threw three touchdown passes in a losing effort.

The Spartans couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. After receiving the opening kickoff, Elmont went three-and-out and was forced to punt. A special teams breakdown gave the Trojans the ball deep in Elmont territory, and two plays later Mixon scored from five yards out.

On the first play of the ensuing drive, Ruthman saw his pass get deflected off a receiver’s hands and into the arms of junior Andrew DeSantis at the Spartans 31-yard line. Three plays later, Mixon found the end zone again, this time from 15 yards out. Billy Rousakis, who was perfect on all seven PATs, split the uprights to make it 14-0.

Elmont showed its resiliency on the next drive, moving the ball to the Garden City 13-yard line. But, the 10-play drive came to an end when Ruthman’s fourth-down pass in the end zone to junior Chester Anderson was caught out of bounds. Senior Lucus Mathieu, who caught four passes for 75 yards, made a terrific one-handed grab on the drive.

The Trojans extended their lead to 21-0 when junior Tyler Wuchte corralled a pass from Colin Hart and took it to the house for a 62-yard touchdown reception.

“The thing we couldn’t afford to have happen was to make costly mistakes against them,” Elmont head coach Jay Hegi said. “You can’t do that and expect to beat a good team like Garden City. When you fall behind 21 points, you have to change the way you do things to try to get back in the game.”

Elmont, which fell to 3-1, got on the board when Ruthman and Anderson hooked up for a 23-yard touchdown reception. Sophomore Joshua Milfort St. Cyr took a direct snap and ran it in for the two-point conversation to get the Spartans within 21-8 with 6:17 to play in the half. 

It took the Trojans six plays to answer. On third-and-six from Elmont’s 37, Wuchte took a handoff and sprinted around right end. He didn’t stop until he was in the end zone. 

Anderson and Lemar Thompson caught touchdown passes for the Spartans in the second half.

Elmont, which defeated Sewanhaka, Carey and Calhoun in September, welcomes in Bellmore-JFK (3-1) this Saturday at 2 p.m.