CHSFL predictions, Thanksgiving edition
Fordham Prep @ Xavier, Nov. 26 10:00 a.m.
Staszewski: Running back Bruce Grant helped the Rams get the better of the Knights in last year’s installment of a rivalry that is now in its 86th season. Fordham Prep has begun to play its best football by the end of the season as quarterback Max Kinder and the offensive line started to settle in. They are no stranger to tight games as Kyle McVicker and the defense sealed an overtime win over Farrell and Kinder led a comeback against Mount St. Michael.
No one was hotter than the Knights as the CHSFL Class AA regular season ended. They won four straight to close out the season as Jonny Clark, John Wilson and John Gearity began to produce consistently behind an improved offense line. Defensive coordinators Bill Paszke and Kevin Kelly have their squad playing opportunist and stingy football.
For Xavier to be successfull they will need to control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. That will be tough to do against the Rams. Fordham Prep will throw the ball enough to give that vaunted Knights defense a chance to change the game, but Grant, a senior, can will his team to victory again if need be. Pick: Fordham Prep
Butler: In this time of giving, I decided to be generous to my opponent. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’m giving Joe a chance to at least finish the season tied. I told him that I’d let him pick first and I’d go the other way, no questions asked.
So that means picking Xavier. The Knights haven’t fared well against ‘AAA’ competition, opening the season with a loss to Xaverian and ending the postseason with a defeat to Mount St. Michael in the Class AA quarterfinals.
But Xavier is coming into their annual Turkey Bowl clash confident after an important win against Archbishop Stepinac in a Class AA bowl game. The Crusaders defeated the Knights, 22-7, in Week 2 en route to an undefeated regular season. But Xavier showed its improvement on Nov. 14 and that will be on display again tomorrow.
A year ago, Bruce Grant ran roughshod on Xavier and carried his team to victory. The Knights vaunted defense will have to limit Grant and to do that they need to win the line of scrimmage. Xavier has enough weapons offensively to score the necessary points to win.
Two years ago at Aviator Sports Complex, Xavier pulled off the upset, beating the Rams for a second straight year. Back in Brooklyn tomorrow, the Knights will be singing “Sons of Xavier” with a third win in the last four years. Pick: Xavier
Turkey Bowl MVP
Senior John Gearity #30 SS/LB
Wins the President's Trophy
13 carries for 97 yards. Scoring 2 Touchdowns and 2 Two Point Conversions. Adding 6 Tackles on Defense.
Gearity guides Xavier to Turkey Bowl win
Knights defeat Fordham, 35-27 in overtime in 86th annual meeting
John Gearity knows the rich history of New York City’s longest football rivalry and he’s heard his coach, Chris Stevens, talk about his memories of the annual Thanksgiving Day clash between Xavier and Fordham Prep sticking with him for decades.
And when the senior back looks back at the 86th annual Turkey Bowl, he’ll do so fondly. Gearity rushed for a pair of touchdowns and a key two-point conversion to lead Xavier to a thrilling 35-27 overtime win against Fordham Prep in front of an estimated crowd of 2,000 fans at Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn on Thursday.
“It means everything to me,” Gearity said. “This is tremendous. I never thought I’d come out like this. I was expecting to win, but to have a great game today means so much.”
Fordham Prep (4-7) still leads the all-time series 47-36-3, but Xavier (7-4) has won three of the last four meetings.
“When you hear about these games going 0-0 and ending because of darkness, you just want to be part of that tradition,” Gearity said. “It was a fight, an offensive fight and defensive fight and it was a great game.”
Gearity, who rushed for 100 yards on 12 carries, was named MVP of the game, but Stevens said the award easily could have been given to Chris Mattina. The junior back scored the winning touchdown, an eight-yard score in just the second overtime game in the series that dates back to 1905, and then had the clinching interception on Fordham Prep’s overtime series.
“It’s just indescribable,” Mattina said. “I knew the ball was coming and I was just swatting down passes all day. To end the big game, that was amazing.”
Stevens assigned Mattina to defend Brendan McGlynn, who was moved from quarterback to receiver midway through the season by Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorynski to give the Rams another receiving option.
Mattina did a tremendous job, knocking a number of attempts away before stepping in front of the Fordham Prep senior to pick off Rams junior quarterback Max Kinder at the Xavier 2-yard line to spark a wild celebration on the field.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more,” Mattina said. “A tight game, give the fans a show and end strong and win the game.”
Fordham Prep forced overtime when Kinder hit Michael Seminario for his second touchdown reception and then connected with Peter Carlino on the tying two-point conversion with 3:02 left in the fourth quarter.
It seemed the momentum that Xavier carried for much of the game had shifted to the boys from The Bronx and the Rams even won the overtime coin toss, deferring to the Knights, who took to the offense first. The Knights needed just two plays to find the end zone as Mattina scored from eight yards out. Would Xavier go for the extra point or roll the dice and attempt a two-point conversion?
“We have a good kicker, but that’s no fun,” said Gearity, who broke Kyle McVicker’s tackle and cut back to score and put pressure on the Rams.
It was sweet redemption for Gearity, who thought he had scored on a two-point conversion midway through the fourth quarter after his 4-yard touchdown put Xavier in front 27-19. But the officials called it the other way.
Gearity and Mattina weren’t the only heroes for Xavier. Jonny Clark rushed for 87 yards on 18 carries and a touchdown, John Wilson had 74 yards on 11 carries and a score and Sean Kelly anchored a defense that limited Fordham Prep star running back Bruce Grant to 97 yards on 22 carries.
“We did a great job on Grant today,” Stevens said. “I was really proud of the kids. But with what they run, they can score a touchdown on every play. We have to be patient and do what we do.”
What they did Thursday morning was come away with a victory the 46 players on the Xavier roster won’t soon forget.
“When you’re working somewhere and trying to pay your electric bill, this is where your daydreams are going,” Stevens said. “You get flashes of it. Sometimes you’ll even dream about it and hope you don’t wake up. Win or lose when you go into overtime on Thanksgiving it’s special, but winning it is that much more special.”
Future bright for Fordham Prep despite OT loss to Xavier
Pete Gorynski saw his team make its share of mistakes on both sides of the football, but Fordham Prep had wrestled momentum away from rival Xavier and forced overtime on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Max Kinder to Michael Seminario and the tying two-point conversion from Kinder to Peter Carlino with 3:02 left in the fourth quarter.
One stop, Gorynski surmised, and the game was over.
“I was wrong,” he said. “They deserved to win. We couldn’t stop them, we couldn’t keep them out of the end zone.”
Chris Mattina scored on an eight-yard run and then picked off Kinder on an attempted pass to Brendan McGlynn to seal Xavier’s 35-27 win in the 86th annual Turkey Bowl Thursday morning at Aviator Sports Complex.
It was the 41st straight Turkey Bowl for Gorynski, who played in this game as a Xavier student.
“This is our Army-Navy game,” Gorynski said. “Regardless of how the season went this is always a great way to end the season.”
But Gorynski would have preferred a different way to end the game.
“We get one or two more stops in the second half we win that football game,” he said. “It wasn’t a great effort for us on the defensive side of the ball and we made plenty of mistakes offensively, too.”
Senior running back Bruce Grant, who rushed for 288 yards and three second-half touchdowns in last year’s 41-28 victory, was limited to 97 yards on 22 carries. Kinder was 11-of-27 for 153 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
The Rams also struggled on the defensive line as Xavier used rugby-like schemes to get the push it needed to gain a total of 296 yards on the ground.
“I asked the officials about it. There is a rule about aiding and abetting a runner, but you have to make contact with the runner,” Gorynski said. “That was Xavier rugby on the football field. It definitely worked to their benefit. They executed and we didn’t stop them.”
Gorynski addressed his team’s 15 seniors for the final time, but he’s optimistic about the future.
“It’s a young team so the future is bright,” he said. “I think we’re going to be a good football team next year.”
Gorynski caught glimpses of the future on Thursday. Sophomore Andrew Velasquez scored an 11-yard touchdown out of the wildcat series to tie the score at 13 with 6.6 seconds left in the first half. Junior Anthony Bronzo had numerous big runs on kickoff returns and junior Michael Seminario caught a pair of touchdown passes.
“For the underclassmen, the season starts tomorrow,” Gorynski said. “I think we’re going to be OK. We return 27 underclassmen and we had a 45-man JV so for the first time in my career at Fordham we’re going to have numbers.”
The Butler Did It
By DYLAN BUTLER
Tom O’Hara never wonders where he’ll be on Thanksgiving morning. That’s because for almost his entire adult life, and a few years before that, O’Hara has attended the annual Turkey Bowl football game between Xavier and Fordham Prep.
This year’s annual clash, played at Aviator Sports Complex in Brooklyn Thursday at 10 a.m., is the 86th annual meeting of the oldest football rivalry in New York City.
For O’Hara, who has been associated with Xavier for more than 40 years, the game is a labor of love. He is the unofficial historian of all things Xavier football and rugby and, by proxy, the keeper of the records of this special and storied rivalry.
The game, you could say, is in his blood. His father, also named Tom O’Hara, played in the 1941 and 1942 games. And O’Hara, the son, played in the 1967 and 1968 games as an undersized offensive lineman.
One of his favorite memories of the Turkey Bowl was the 1968 game. Xavier, he said, endured a miserable season and took a 1-5-1 record into the clash. Fordham Prep, meanwhile, was installed as a 14-point favorite in a game that was being broadcast live on WPIX with the immortal Marty Glickman handling play-by-play duties.
The Kaydets, as they were known then, crushed Fordham Prep, 32-0, at Coffey Field in The Bronx.
“It literally changed my life,” O’Hara said.
That’s because O’Hara, all 5-foot-8, 167-pounds of him, was recruited to play at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. That’s where he first played rugby and a few years later, in 1976, he founded the rugby program at Xavier, which has become a perennial national powerhouse.
O’Hara, who became the first freshman football coach at Xavier in 1977, returned to his alma mater to coach in 1973.
One year later, quarterback Bobby Haskins placed his stamp on the history of the rivalry.
“Everyone knew that Bobby was a nice kid, but a goofball who is liable to say anything,” O’Hara said. “He just says whatever enters his mind.”
That’s just what Haskins did at the annual pep rally at the Chelsea school on the day before the big game.
“I don’t even remember what the speech was, but the climax was when he said tomorrow I guarantee you we will score 40 points,” O’Hara said.
Once again Xavier was a prohibitive underdog and hadn’t come close to scoring 40 points in a game all season, but Haskins proved prophetic. In one of the greatest varsity debuts in New York history, Haskins picked apart Fordham Prep and Xavier stunned the Rams, 54-6.
O’Hara’s two sons both attended Xavier and his youngest, Ciaran, played in the 2004 game.
Current Xavier coach Chris Stevens played in his final Turkey Bowl in 1982, an 8-3 win by Fordham Prep. Seventeen years later, Stevens coached in his first Turkey Bowl game, guiding his alma mater to a 37-16 victory.
In 2006, Xavier ended a seven-year drought by beating the Rams, 28-14. The Turkey Bowl MVP was Xavier fullback and middle linebacker Ryan McTiernan, son of 1968 Turkey Bowl MVP Roger McTiernan.
Last year, in front of 5,000 fans at Coffey Field, Bruce Grant outdueled Seamus Kelly in a battle of dynamic running backs, but it was Fordham sophomore Matt Casella who came up with a clutch interception to seal the 41-28 win at Coffey Field. His father, Mike Casella, and uncle, Joe Casella, helped lead Xavier to four consecutive Turkey Bowl victories from 1979-1982.
Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorynski is also intimately connected to the game. In fact, this will be his 41st consecutive game. Gorynski first attended the game as a Xavier student – then it was mandatory for the entire student body to go the game – and for the next three years he played in it. He’s also coached both teams, the only person in history to do so. Stevens was once an assistant for Gorynski, when he coached at Xavier.
The first meeting between the two rivals took place on Dec. 2, 1883, in a game that ended in a 6-6 draw. From 1905-1907, Fordham Prep pounded Xavier, winning 32-0, 61-0 and 61-0.
There is no record of the two teams playing over the course of the next 19 years, in part because Xavier discontinued football around the time of World War I. The series continued in 1927, with Fordham Prep winning, 12-6, and the two teams have played every year since.
However, not every game was on Thanksgiving. On Election Day 1929, some 80,000 fans watched seven high-school football games across the city, including a reported 3,000 at Fordham University who witnessed a 19-13 Xavier victory, thanks to a 70-yard, fourth-quarter punt return by Bernard Moynahan, who went on to become a captain in the U.S. Army.
He was killed in action in Italy during World War II and the Moynahan Trophy, awarded annually to Xavier’s best athlete, is in his name.
Most of the annual clashes have been played on the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University, but the storied rivalry has been played out at numerous other locations throughout the city.
There have been at least seven meetings at Randall’s Island and games have also been played at McGovern Field in The Bronx, Recreation Park in Long Island City’s Queens Plaza, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, L.I., Brooklyn’s Midwood and Erasmus Hall High Schools and Aviator Field in Brooklyn, where Xavier defeated Fordham Prep, 20-14, two years ago.
Fordham Prep leads the all-time series, 47-35-3, and has dominated in recent years, winning seven of the last nine Turkey Bowls.
Fordham Prep, which plays in the ‘AAA’ division of the CHSFL, is again considered the favorite this year. Will Xavier pull off the upset? Will the Rams continue their recent dominance? Whatever happens, O’Hara will be there to chronicle it all.
Josh Thomson
jthomson@lohud.com
A sprained ankle midway through Bruce Grant’s senior season slowed him, but the Fordham Prep running back still posted his second straight 1,000-yard season and appears poised to land on a Football Championship Subdivision roster next fall.
With one last high school game and his college plans still undecided, the White Plains resident returns to the moment of his career highlight, hoping to finish strong.
“It’s always great to play in this game because it’s such a big rivalry,” said Grant, whose Rams will travel to Aviator Field in Brooklyn on Thursday for the 86th annual Turkey Bowl against Xavier. “It’s my last game, and you really want to go out with a bang. You want to leave something for the school to remember.”
How can I forget? As a junior, Grant emerged in the second half of last year’s Turkey Bowl to finish off Xavier. The 5-foot-11, 175-pounder rushed for three touchdowns and finished the game with 288 yards on the ground, cementing himself in Rams lore.
“I will remember that always,” Grant said. “It was a quiet first half for me. It was the Connor Brown show. After he got going, that took a lot of pressure off me. It was a big confidence booster for me to end on that note.”
Grant, a member of the team that set a national record in the shuttle hurdles relay last winter, started this football season strong. But he sprained his ankle late in a 41-40 win over Mount St. Michael on Oct. 24 and missed the following week’s loss to Holy Trinity.
The ankle has slowed Grant in the two games since, both of which Fordham Prep lost. Coach Pete Gorynski hopes- days off have helped Grant heal.
“He’s looking better in practice each day,” Gorynski said. “We’re hoping he’ll be near 100 percent, if not at 100 percent, this Thursday.”
Grant has been recruited by Columbia, Fordham and Bryant to play running back, and he was recently admitted to Columbia, the school Gorynski said has “a better than even chance” of securing Grant’s services.
Grant believes Thursday can stamp his future, and cement his reputation around the CHSFL.
“A lot of people look at me as one of the better backs in the league,” Grant said. “To go out with anything less than what people expect would be a real disappointment.”
Grant enters Thursday with 1,036 yards and 10 touchdowns rushing. With a repeat of last season, those numbers would look even loftier.
“Bruce is a great kid,” Gorynski said. “I’m hoping he has a great game, not just for Fordham Prep, but for Bruce Grant.”
