Mullen-Balzano-Martorella lead Wantagh
Wantagh HS's Matt Balzano #23 catches a pass to score a touchdown and even the score at 16-16 in the second overtime in a Nassau County Conference II Varsity Football game played at H.F. Carey High School. Wantagh won 17-16 in double overtime. (Oct. 6, 2011) Credit: Dan Neri
The play is called "288 Boot Throwback.'' For Wantagh, it could have been called "Lifesaver.''
"It's a play you save for that moment," Warriors quarterback Nick Mullen said after his 15-yard touchdown pass to Matt Balzano and Andrew Martorella's clutch extra point gave Wantagh (4-1) a dramatic 17-16 double-overtime victory over host Carey (3-2) Thursday in Nassau II football.
In the second overtime, the Warriors faced a fourth-and-goal from the Carey 15. The Seahawks already had scored a touchdown on a 20-yard run by workhorse Rob Zorn (30 carries, 158 yards, two TDs) on the previous possession. But Gerard Roche, who had three interceptions, blocked the extra point, opening the door.
So even though Wantagh had completed only three passes the entire game, one in which both defenses thoroughly dominated, it was time to empty the playbook.
Mullen dropped back to pass and rolled a few steps to his left. His favorite target, Brian VonBargen, ran a post pattern. Halfback Balzano circled out of the backfield down the left sideline. "A wheel route," Balzano said. "They followed VonBargen to the middle. The line did a great job of blocking. It was all about the pass. I just ran under it."
Mullen lofted a soft pass that dropped right into Balzano's hands in the end zone to tie the score. "The only place the ball could've been thrown where he could catch it," Wantagh coach Tom Casey said.
But the all-important extra point remained. Out came Martorella, a sophomore who was promoted from the junior varsity before the first game of the season after he won a kicking competition in practice. "We had no one else who could kick an extra point or field goal," Casey said.
Martorella, a soccer player until this fall who hit a 30-yard field goal in the first overtime after nearly winning the game with a 37-yard field-goal attempt that hit just below the crossbar in regulation, left-footed the PAT kick right down the middle. "I just tried to think of it like an extra point in practice," he said.
Except for the part about getting mobbed by dozens of teammates afterward.
