North Babylon ends first half with wild touchdown
Riverhead's Devrim Kuckuk is about to take down North Babylon's Jake Conner in the Suffolk Division II football final at LaValle Stadium. (Nov. 25, 2012) Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The first half of Sunday night's Riverhead-North Babylon Suffolk II title game ended with some highly unusual razzle-dazzle.
The sequence: North Babylon's Jake Conner nailed a 40-yard punt that rolled dead at the Riverhead 2 with 20 seconds left. Riverhead took a knee, figuring the Bulldogs would let the clock run out.
But trailing 28-6, North Babylon was desperate. So the Bulldogs called timeout, setting up second-and-1 from the 1. Riverhead's Jeremiah Cheatom ran 3 yards to the 4-yard line and 3 yards to the 7, with the Bulldogs calling timeout after each play. That left 4.7 seconds on the clock, so Riverhead decided to punt from the end zone.
Anthony Chiaramonte, under a strong rush, barely got the punt away, and it was short and returnable. Conner caught the ball at the 30 and immediately lateraled it overhand across the field to Connor Slane, who dodged tacklers to score a stunning touchdown.
