It's all about comebacks for Bellport in 2010
Bellport's Eddie Carson kisses the championship plaque after beating Garden City, 26-21, in the Class II Long Island Championship game at Stony Brook University. (Nov. 27, 2010) Credit: Kevin P. Coughlin
More than halfway through the 2010 regular season, Bellport football was more about head-shaking than record-breaking. The Clippers were 2-3, a dozen of their players had been suspended one game for violating team rules, and the LIC looked like a party to which they would not receive an invitation.
"I'm too old to be tested like that," venerable coach Joe Cipp Jr. said at Thursday night's Suffolk County Football Coaches Association awards dinner.
He laughed as he made the comment, because he and his players once again were picking up plenty of hardware.
Bellport won its final seven games, including a dramatic 26-21 victory over Garden City in the Long Island Class II championship game, to earn its sixth L.I. title, tying North Babylon for the most since the event began in 1992.
"I watched the Garden City game on TV and I was nervous, even though I knew the outcome," Cipp said of the thriller won on Travis Houpe's 3-yard touchdown run with 1:23 left.
Comebacks were a major part of the season's story line. The Clippers rallied from 17 points down to beat Riverhead in Week 5, a turning-point game, according to Cipp. Their junior quarterback, Justin Honce, finally learned the intricacies of the newly installed spread offense, and Houpe emerged as a true game-breaker. Plus, the team bonded in true Bellport tradition, something they admitted they hadn't done early.
"In the beginning of the season, we weren't playing together," Syracuse-bound two-way lineman Ryan Sloan said. "Bellport is all about one big family. When we played together, no one could stop us."
No one could stop Houpe. In the Suffolk semifinals, he silenced an overflow crowd at Newfield by returning the opening kickoff 95 yards for a TD. In the county title game vs. East Islip, his 92-yard TD run broke open a close game and the 5-8, 180-pound dynamo set a county playoff record with 332 yards on 30 carries. In the LIC, Houpe overcame two injuries to gain 104 tough yards, including the game-winning run.
"We talked about it at practice , that we weren't playing as one," he said. "That's not the Bellport tradition. We're a brotherhood and we play for all the people who played before us."
The 2010 team, which finished 9-3, continued that rich tradition. There will be county and L.I. championship signs added to the wall of fame that adorns the wall of the high school, adjacent to the football field named for the old coach. But 2010 also will be known as the year in which Cipp became the winningest coach in Suffolk County football history with 211 victories. He passed Comsewogue's Tom Cassese (209).
"There were a lot of emotions this season," said Cipp, who added he is thinking about retirement and will decide after the holidays. "But not because of the record. I'd rather win a championship than set a record any time in my life."
In 2010, Cipp and the Bellport family got to do both.
