Bedell, Crossan star; Floyd tops Sachem N.
William Floyd's Stacey Bedell, right, and Vantrell Nash, left, celebrate scoring against Sachem North in the Suffolk Division I final. (Nov. 20, 2011) Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
If this was an audition, both guys get the part.
If this was a movie, both were co-stars.
But this was the Suffolk I championship game, and for a third straight year, the script had a familiar ending: Floyd advances to the Long Island Championships. Sachem North goes home.
Stacey Bedell ran for 258 yards on 36 carries and scored three touchdowns to lead the Colonials to a 35-20 victory Sunday night at Stony Brook's LaValle Stadium, where a crowd estimated at more than 4,000 watched Bedell and Dalton Crossan stage a memorable individual duel.
Crossan ran for 218 yards on 35 carries and scored touchdowns on runs of 29, 10 and 14 yards. He leads Long Island with 38 TDs. Bedell, who scored on runs of 39, 15 and 9 yards and has 35 TDs, set a school record with 68 for his career. He has rushed for a school-record 2,120 yards.
"They are both unbelievable players and they put on a great show,'' Floyd coach Paul Longo said, wiping the ice water from his head after Bedell interrupted his postgame speech by emptying the bucket on him. "They're special players.''
Both teams are 9-2, but Floyd will face East Meadow at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Stony Brook for the Long Island Class I title.
"I really want to win it this year. It's my last chance,'' said Bedell, who lost in the LIC the previous two years. "When Crossan made a big play, I just knew I had to go out and make one, but I didn't think of it as an individual thing. It was all about winning the game.''
Floyd accomplished that because of a couple of wrinkles Longo installed for this game.
He made sure quarterback A.J. Otranto worked on the deep post pattern, then waited for just the right opportunity to spring it. On Floyd's first play from scrimmage in the third quarter, Otranto hit a streaking Vantrell Nash down the middle for a 50-yard touchdown and a 21-13 lead. Later in the quarter, he hit Nash on the same route for a 26-yard score.
"We worked on that play all week,'' said Otranto, who also came up huge at linebacker, nailing Crossan for losses in the backfield four times. "We hoped they'd line up that way . In one-and-one coverage, I had confidence in Vantrell and the line.''
After Crossan cut it to 28-20 with his 14-yard touchdown run, Bedell and the Colonials put the game out of reach with a 12-play, 74-yard drive that consumed 6:51 of the fourth quarter. Bedell carried 11 times, including several times from a brand-new wildcat alignment in which he took a direct snap. That formation produced three critical third-down conversions.
"We put that in this week. It gives me a better start with the ball,'' said Bedell, whose 9-yard run gave Floyd a 35-20 lead. "That was the biggest drive of the game. Coach kept reminding me to hold on to the ball. But I don't like to think about that. I just think about carrying it and gaining yards.''
Spoken like a true leading man.
