Thursday, October 1, 2026
Coming off a 2-6 campaign where they were bit hard by the injury bug, the Bulldogs will look to improve behind good old fashioned hard work.
“We want to lead the conference in effort,” head coach John Palladino said. “Worry about the next moment.”
That’s the standard that this program has set for 10 years under Palladino. He’s hoping for a much healthier season after Hewlett was forced to go to its third quarterback in just the second game.
“They stayed the course and they kept chopping the wood and coming to practice every day,” he continued.
Fast forward to this season, and that same third-string quarterback is competing for the starting job. Senior Preston Cusumano went down as the second-string, handing the offense to senior Jacob Eisenberg. The offense will be led by one of those seniors in the fall.
“They compete in the weight room and the offseason against each other,” Palladino said. “They competed during the summer with and against each other, and they’re competing every day in practice.”
The offensive line has three team captains in senior right tackle Dom Lord, senior left guard Liev Hecht and senior center Jostin Poveda. The quarterback’s blindside is up for competition between senior Alex Fournier and sophomore Joe Piccionne, while right tackle is junior Buddy Amitrano.
“We’re going to rely heavily on the offensive and defensive line,” Palladino said. “For leadership because three of our four captains are on the line. We’re going to rely on them to stop the run, run the ball and be leaders.”
Senior running back and captain Dylan Parchment returns as the team’s head offensive playmaker. He’s coming off a junior campaign where he ran for 735 yards and 7 touchdowns on 135 carries, averaging 5.4 yards per carry.
“He’s a hard-worker,” Palladino said. “His actions speak much louder than his words, he doesn’t talk a lot. He leads by example and he works so hard in every period of practice. If he stays healthy, we think we have have a pretty good year.”
Senior Eilai Karadi and junior Sal Castro are two X wide receivers who Palladino expects to lead this team through the air. As first-year varsity starters, the coach also expects Sal Castro and Buddy Amitrano to contribute a lot.
Senior free safety Jacob Zohar has caught the eye of his head coach in the early days of practice.
“His ability to change positions, his football IQ has improved, he committed himself to the weightroom and has gotten himself in very good shape,” Palladino said. “He’s very coachable.”
Palladino stressed he wants his team to lead the conference in effort. He has a standard of his program and under his watch, no team will work harder than Hewlett.
“The identity of this group is hard working, they’re coachable and they love football,” Palladino said. “The spring and the summer [attendance to offseason workouts] have been really good. This week has been really good. We want to have great effort every day. We want to practice with great effort, play with great effort and focus on things we can control. We want to lead the conference in the number one thing we can control, which is effort.”
Palladino added the expectation is to be on time and be a good teammate. He doesn’t talk about wins and losses with his players, just hard work and effort.
The Bulldogs are seeded 11th in the 12-team Confernce III and open on the road against Division.
“The standard showed a lot by us being able to keep the team together, how we do things and the level of expectations we have at Hewlett,” Palladino continued. “We don’t have youth football and we get a lot of kids in high school who have never played football before. And we have 80 kids between JV and varsity. I think that says a lot about the community, for the school, administrations and the Athletic Director [David Viegas].”
To read more from the Herald's 2026 High School Football Preview, click here.
