Opening Day Woes: Kennedy Football Shutout By Elmont

For openers, this isn't what the Kennedy Cougars had in mind.

For starters, it wasn't a real competitive game.

In the end, it was a rout.

Done in by three consecutive big plays in the first quarter, the Kennedy football team was unable to recover, suffering a 33-0 drubbing at the hands of Elmont Saturday afternoon.  It was not exactly the debut first-year coach Nick Martone hoped for.

"We got away from who we are today," Martone said.  "We just didn't execute where we should have, that would have kept our offense on the field a little more, and kept our defense off the field a lot more."

The Cougars got off to a good enough start on their opening drive at Elmont High School.  Quarterback Adrian Rose hit wide receiver Will Colon for 12 yards, and running back Joey Karo picked up 13 on his first carry. The drive stalled near midfield however, and it was downhill from there.

Elmont's Jaquan Smith scored on a 75 yard TD run on the Spartan's first drive, the first of the 'big three' that did in the Cougars.

On their next possession, Elmont quarterback Qusarn Caldwell scored on a 31 yard run, and after Rose threw an interception on the Cougar's ensuing drive, it was Smith with another big play, this time a 55 yard TD reception on the very first play after the turnover.

Smith's second TD put Kennedy in a 20-0 hole only minutes into the game.

"It's tough when it happens that fast, tough to recover," Martone said.

The early deficit took the Cougars out of whatever offensive rhythm they hoped to establish.  The Elmont 'D' clamped down on Karo, and sacked Rose several times as well.

"We didn't come ready to play, that's it," Karo said.

Martone explained: "We had a tough time dealing with blitzes and picking guys up...on the outside they manned us up a lot better than I thought they'd be able to.  We had a tough time getting into our routes."

After Kennedy was forced to punt from deep in their own territory, Elmont's Kyle Johnson returned the kick to the Cougar 19 yard line. A few plays later, Smith had his third TD of the game, a three yard run, and it was 26-0 shortly before the half.

In the second half, Elmont slowed the pace down, running the ball and killing the clock with their reserves.  Charlie Dimoh scored on a 10-yard run to cap off the Elmont scoring.

Kennedy did what they could to get on the scoreboard.  Karo took a shovel pass 37 yards for a rare trip inside Elmont territory, but the Cougars got no further and turned it over on downs.

"I think the boys did a pretty good job of handling [the deficit]," Martone said of his team's effort in the second half.  "We decided to come out and play a much better half, got a turnover, started doing a few things to feel good about ourselves heading into next week."

It will be a short week, as the Cougars prepare for their home opener Thursday against Westbury.  Martone says there's no time to dwell on the loss.

"Westbury's going to show up in our place ready to go, so come Monday we have three days to prepare," he said. "We're going to have to be able to turn the page and get after it real quick."