Bedell leads Floyd to LIC Class I title

Stacey Bedell cried before the game . . . for the first time.

Stacey Bedell hurdled a tackler during a game . . . for the first time.

Stacey Bedell exceeded 400 yards rushing in a game . . . for the first time.

Stacey Bedell won a Long Island championship . . . for the first time.

"This is all I wanted. It feels amazing," Bedell said after Floyd beat East Meadow, 54-47, for the Long Island Class I title Sunday night at Stony Brook's LaValle Stadium before more than 6,000.

With the score tied at 47, A.J. Otranto threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Corey Banks with 3:16 remaining, giving Floyd its fourth LIC title. Both teams finished 10-2.

For all of Bedell's theatrics -- four touchdowns, an LIC-record 412 yards rushing -- it nearly ended in heartbreak for Floyd. East Meadow rallied from 35-14 and 41-20 deficits, tying the score at 47 with 2:34 left in the third quarter on Dylan Curry's 22-yard run and Rob Healy's two-point conversion run. That capped a 27- point third quarter for the Jets.

"I really wanted this so bad," Bedell said. "I was emotional before the game that I was crying in the locker room because it was my last game."

From the moment Bedell opened the scoring with an 80-yard run eight minutes into the contest, it was clear the Floyd senior was going to have a memorable finale. Each of his touchdowns was more spectacular than the next -- the others were runs of 51, 59 and 80 -- as Bedell averaged 14.2 yards on his 29 carries.

The old LIC record of 303 rushing yards, set by North Babylon's Omar Palmer in 1999, fell on Bedell's second 80-yard dash. On that third-quarter run, he swept left, turned the corner and raced down the sideline. An East Meadow defensive back had the angle, but Bedell, running at full speed, somehow applied the brakes, stutter-stepped backward and cut back to the middle and into the end zone untouched.

And that wasn't his best move of the night. Late in the first quarter, he took a handoff and darted up the middle. Not much room for mere mortals, but he shook off a tackler, sidestepped another and leaped over a third and into the clear. "That's my first time jumping over someone in a game," Bedell said. "I was going to do anything I could to win."

Bedell, who finished with 39 touchdowns, 2,011 yards and a school-record 72 TDs for his career, was especially motivated because he recalled a tearful conversation he had with receiver Vantrell Nash after last year's 62-35 loss to Freeport, Bedell's second straight LIC loss to the Red Devils. "I told Vantrell to pick his head up and that we would be back,'' he said. "I promised him."

Healy rushed for 171 yards and a touchdown and caught a 31-yard TD pass as the Jets outgained Floyd 444-402 on the ground. Billy Andrle ran for 128 yards and three touchdowns. Curry ran for 93 and passed for 92.

Floyd won it with a 68-yard scoring drive, with Bedell going 39 yards on the first play and gaining the first 50 yards. On third-and-9 from the 18, Otranto faked to Bedell, rolled right and hit Banks in the end zone. "Even on third-and-9, I figured they'd be looking for Stacey," coach Paul Longo said. Davante Smith, who had a 75-yard TD on a kickoff return, sealed it with his second interception with 54.7 seconds left.

"Stacey never ceases to amaze me," Longo said. "He comes to play in big games. We needed every one of those yards on that last drive, and he must've been exhausted. But he came through."

For the last time.