Wednesday games wreak havoc with week

Oh, those best-laid plans of mice, men and high school football coaches. Nothing like a couple of rare Wednesday afternoon games to put those structured routines through a shredder.

"It was really weird. We had no precedent. We didn't know what to do," said Riverhead coach Leif Shay, whose Blue Waves were one of four teams that played on Wednesday, defeating Half Hollow Hills East, 47-35. "Do you go full gear or not? It was seat of your pants."

Because of the heavy Jewish population in the Half Hollow Hills school district that would have resulted in Hills East and Hills West missing football practice on Thursday and Friday for Rosh Hashanah, both schools rescheduled their Saturday games for Wednesday. Thus, the Hills East at Riverhead and East Islip at Hills West games were played four days after the teams played last Saturday. Because the schools were not allowed to practice on Sunday, that meant only two practice days between games. Nothing routine about those routines.

"It was nuts," Hills East coach Mike Patrovich said. "You had to jam five days of work into two days." Patrovich opted for four-hour practices on Monday and Tuesday, with full pads and hitting. "We couldn't afford a less intense day," said Patrovich, who noted Monday usually is a light day -- weightlifting, film study and scouting.

East Islip coach Sal Ciampi Jr. said his staff met Sunday to put in a game plan and "the rest was all about hard practices. We went 4 1/2 hours both days instead of our usual three hours." Ciampi also said he started getting ready for Hills West "in the summer. We knew we'd be playing them on short rest . . . "

Hills West coach Kyle Madden said, "It was tough for us to come back and play again on Wednesday. We had a true 48-minute game on Saturday . We couldn't take out any of our regulars and give them some rest. That game took an emotional and physical toll. We didn't hit as much in practice on Tuesday."

Similarly, Riverhead used restraint. "We did shells [shoulder pads] for the two days," Shay said. "We didn't want to push them too hard. We couldn't do a comprehensive game plan, so we just worked on fundamentals."

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Which was fine with the players. "It was more of a change for the coaches," Madden said. "We're much more about routine than the kids. They'd rather play a game than practice, so it didn't really bother them."