Brockport football suffers first loss of season

The Brockport football team saw its undefeated season come to an abrupt stop Saturday, Sept. 22. The Eagles were defeated 14-6 by the Kean University Cougars and saw their record slip to 3-1.

The Cougars, fresh off a bye-week, had two weeks to prepare for the Eagles’ high-powered offense.

Cougar running back Darius Kinney ran for 207 yards against the Eagles.

Coming into the game, the Eagles were averaging 34.3 points per game.

Unfortunately, the Eagles’ offense could only score one touchdown, which was a six-yard scamper by Scibilia.

 The extra point was blocked and that was the only score  for the Eagles.

The Eagles had another opportunity to score as senior kicker EJ Genzano lined up for a 39-yard field goal attempt, which he pushed wide left.

The Eagles had more opportunities down the stretch, but could not manage to score.

“The one phase of the game that we took for granted was our offense,” senior wide receiver Jordan Hogan said.

“I take a lot of blame myself,” Hogan said. “I dropped a few key passes that could’ve set us up better.”

Brockport threatened to score when Scibilia connected with junior wider receiver Jake Spalik for a 42-yard pass.

The Cougars’ defense remained stout though, forcing two incomplete passes and a rush for no gain to end the Eagles attempt to score.

The Eagles defense, which has been taking the ball away from teams all year, tried to come to the rescue yet again.

The defense forced a Kean fumble and momentarily regained hope for the Eagles in the fourth quarter.

With 1:30 left in the game, the Eagles had one more shot to even the score.

Scibilia led the Eagles offense down the field for a first down and then ended the drive with an incomplete pass on a failed fourth down conversion.

“Coach [Rocco Salamone] said that we left a lot of opportunities out there, “ Hogan said. “I think we did too.”

“When I walked into the locker room and looked around, everybody was upset,” Hogan said. “We all know that we let that victory get away. You would’ve thought that the season was over.”

Scibilia had a rough day on the field, throwing 41 times and only completing 14 passes for 147 yards. He threw no touchdowns — the Eagles’ single touchdown was on a rushing touchdown.

Tyrone Nichols rushed for 102 yards on 14  carries and no touchdowns. However, he was still the spark of the offense on the day.

Hogan caught six balls for 43 yards and Spalik caught five balls for 70 yards, totaling almost 80 percent of the offense through the air.

The defense held Kean’s passing game to just 76 yards through air.

“Overall the defense played great,” Hogan said. “Colby [Morabito] had another interception and the defense kept us in the game. It was a dog fight.”

Junior linebacker John O’Hagan forced a fumble late in the game. O’Hagan had nine tackles overall.

Morabito also had nine tackles. He added another interception to his tally. It was his third of the year.

 Morabito has had at least one interception in the past three games.

Anthony Bianchi led in tackles with 11 during the football game.

Saturday, Sept. 29, the Eagles will travel to Rowan  for another tough conference game.

The Eagles are now 3-1 overall and 1-1 in NJAC play.

“Rowan is an intimidating place to play,” Hogan said.“I haven’t played there since my freshman year and the crowd there can get to you, but we will be ready. We are always ready.”