By Tony Bellissimo
It's off to Hofstra and the Nassau Conference II football semifinals for top-seeded Lawrence, which despite four turnovers came away with a 14-7 victory over No. 8 Bellmore-JFK on Saturday.
The Golden Tornadoes piled up more than 300 yards rushing, with senior Bryan DiSabato gaining a career-high 209 yards and junior Travis Kennedy adding 74. Kennedy's 18-yard touchdown run in the first quarter opened the scoring and his 3-yard jaunt in the third provided the decisive points.
"We had a flat day," Coach Lou Andre said. "Hiccups happen. We ran the ball well when we didn't fumble it. The offensive line did a solid job and we had a bunch of long drives. But we put the ball on the ground four times. There's no way we can do that against Elmont and expect to win."
Lawrence (7-1) will meet No. 6 Elmont, which upset Carey, on Friday at 4 p.m. at Hofstra. It's the 19th Andre-coached team to reach the semifinals on the turf. "Elmont's on a serious roll right now," he said. "We have to be ready for the blitz when we're on offense and our defense has to step up because their offense has changed in recent weeks."
Lawrence was a 21-6 winner over Elmont on Oct. 14. The other semifinal has defending champion Garden City facing MacArthur. "Any of the remaining teams can win it," Andre said. "We're only going to be happy if we pull it off. Our goal is to go all the way."
For a brief moment last Saturday, Bellmore-JFK was in the driver's seat. The Cougars got their only score midway through the second quarter when Michael Mills ran for a 6-yard touchdown. They led 7-6 at the half thanks to Zach Malis' extra point. "They put together a few long drives of their own," Andre said.
But the Lawrence defense, led by Malik Crowl (seven tackles) pitched a shutout over the final 16 minutes and clearly turned it up a notch after Kennedy's second TD and P.J. Preziosa's 2-point conversion pass to Jerrell Milligan.
