Trickery not enough for Baldwin

Baldwin put an exclamation mark on a hard-fought first half against East Meadow last Saturday, when it turned an early Halloween trick into a touchdown treat, but the 97-yard touchdown return by sophomore Treyvon Mask on a kickoff reverse represented the only points the Bruins (3-4) would muster in a 28-7 Conference I loss.

“We worked on that all week long,” Baldwin coach Steve Carroll said. “We try some new wrinkle special-teams wise every week.”

Senior Tyler Harper fielded the kick at the Bruins 5-yard line, and Mask, lined up on the opposite side of the field, broke towards Harper, took a pitch and turned upfield where a wall of white Baldwin jerseys opened up a clear path to the East Meadow end zone. The scoring return was eerily similar to one the Bruins had run on the same field the last time the teams met in the first round of the 2009 Nassau Conference I playoffs that helped Baldwin pull off an upset of the then No. 2-seeded Jets. “We’ve gotten beaten twice by them on a play like that,” East Meadow coach Vin Mascia said. “It was a great job by them, and a bad job by us.”

Coming out of intermission, however, the Bruins were forced to shuffle their lineup due to the loss of senior linebacker Chris Mertens to an injury, and the domino effect was apparent from the Jets initial drive of the second quarter. East Meadow, led by senior Shin Shun Kang, needed just seven plays to march 65 yards for the go-ahead score. Kang ripped off runs of 16, 14 and 10 yards, while senior running back Chris Mastroianni had gains of 21 and nine before junior Robbie Healy scored from one-yard out.

“We were able to run the ball and hit a couple of spots that we like to think are strengths of ours,” Mascia said.

But despite the march downfield, East Meadow didn’t put the game out of reach until the ensuing kickoff. Already burned by the Mask touchdown, the Jets made a conscious decision not to let it happen again and squibbed their first two kicks of the half. The second, following Healy’s score, bounced off a Baldwin player on the first line of the return unit and was recovered by East Meadow at midfield. Six plays later, Healy was in the end zone again, opening up a two-touchdown lead.

“We got caught and decided to squib,” Mascia said. “Every once in a while you get lucky and hit a guy. Us scoring, getting the ball back and scoring again was the difference.”

Senior King Bulaon and sophomore Justin Bell each had sacks, and junior Michael Abrahams had a first quarter fumble recovery for the Bruins. 

Baldwin aims to snap its three-game losing skid in the regular-season finale on Saturday, when it hosts Hicksville at 1:30 p.m.