Oceanside continues historic run

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The last time Oceanside’s football program enjoyed an undefeated regular season, in 1955, McDonald’s served its first customer, Elvis Presley was dominating the airwaves, a gallon of gasoline cost less than a quarter, and Nassau County wasn’t in playoff mode.

It took 60 years for the Sailors to duplicate a perfect regular season, after going 2-6 in 2014, but the accomplishment and historical comparisons were the furthest things on their minds last Saturday evening when they walked off the field at halftime in front of a standing-room-only crowd trailing Uniondale by a point in a Conference I first-round playoff game.

“Nothing comes easy in this conference,” Oceanside head coach Rob Blount said. “The greatest and toughest thing about the playoffs is you’re usually faced with needing to beat teams a second time.

“Uniondale was well-prepared and came to play,” he added. “They’ve got a lot of athletes over there. We saw that a few weeks ago when we beat them at their place.”

Senior quarterback Vinny Guarino’s 26-yard touchdown run with 1:53 remaining in the third quarter regained the lead for the top-seeded Sailors, who outlasted the Knights, 26-7, and advanced to the semifinals where they’ll face No. 5 Massapequa this Saturday at 5 p.m. at Hofstra.

“We shot ourselves in the foot a couple of times and had to regroup at halftime,” Blount said. “We had to settle for field goals on a few drives and had a bad turnover in each half. But our defense played great and we made some big plays in the second half.”

Uniondale (4-5), which led the Sailors by eight points after the opening quarter of Oceanside’s 43-22 victory on Oct. 24, answered a pair of second-quarter field goals (25 and 23 yards) by sophomore Francesco Ancona last Saturday with 4:10 remaining in the half when quarterback Dillano Binda connected deep with Hopeton Bennett on a 39-yard touchdown. The extra point by Jose Romero Torres put the Knights in front, 7-6.

With a driving wind at their back, the Sailors (9-0) moved inside the red zone on their opening possession of the second half but a tipped pass at the Uniondale 10 landed in the arms of Chris Duhaney for an interception. After Oceanside’s defense forced the Knights to punt out of their own end zone, Guarino & Co. were back in business at the 37 and cashed in three plays later when he busted up the middle for their first playoff touchdown since a 2013 semifinal loss to Massapequa.

Senior Brandy Diaz then sparked Oceanside’s next scoring drive with four carries totaling 24 yards, including a 5-yard touchdown run with 10:34 remaining. A 74-yard run by Guarino set up a game-sealing 5-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Dylan Judd with 3:32 to go. 

“I’m expecting another close game against Massapequa,” Blount said. “We need to establish the line of scrimmage and continue to play big on defense.”

Seniors Mike Ambrosecchia (eight tackles) and Nick Pizzarelli (six) led the unit against Uniondale.