Porters prevail in 0-3 team battle

The Porters’ Ryan Malone scored twice and ran for a career-high 195 yards.

A win is a precious thing, especially for a team that doesn’t have any.


The Greenport/Southold/Mattituck/Shelter Island Porters can be thankful they no longer fall into the category of high school football teams with a “0” in the win column. A matchup between two teams that shared 0-3 records is not typically seen as a big one, but the Porters and the Bishop McGann-Mercy Monarchs would say otherwise. For the two Suffolk County Division IV teams, a good deal was at stake when they played on Friday night.


“It was so important,” Porters Coach Jim Anderson said. “It was a team that we knew we could beat, and if we took a loss here, it might have been the whole season.”


In that sense, the Porters might have saved their season by outscoring the Monarchs, 39-28, snapping a 10-game losing streak, and putting a damper on McGann-Mercy’s homecoming game at Harold T. Murray Memorial Field.


Think this game didn’t matter much? Think again.


“It was like the most important game,” Porters fullback/outside linebacker Tyler McNeil said. “If we [didn’t] win this one, I thought our season was close to being over.”


But a running game, headlined by Ryan Malone, a promising sophomore, and a fine showing by a defense that sacked Monarchs quarterback Pat Stepnoski five times gave the Porters cause for encouragement.


Malone galloped for a career-high 195 yards and scored his first two varsity touchdowns, including a 53-yarder on the Porters’ first play from scrimmage. It was the third straight game in which the Monarchs allowed their opponent to score on its first play from scrimmage. Malone’s second score from five yards out in the second quarter snapped a 7-7 tie, putting the Porters ahead to stay. He followed lead blocks by McNeil both times.


“It kind of sets a tone for our next game, and we’re just going to build on this and get better and better,” said Malone, who was promoted from the junior varsity team at the urging of assistant coaches.


“I fought bringing him up,” Anderson said. “I kept saying, ‘No, no, no.’ ”


Malone showed he belongs on the team, though. His first carry of the second half went for 70 yards.


Altogether, seven ball carriers brought the Porters 259 yards on the ground. “That was our plan coming in,” Anderson said, “run the ball, run the ball, run the ball.”


And yet, the Porters also had some success in the air. An interception by Dan Letteriello set up the Porters’ third touchdown, an 11-yard pass from Letteriello to Dantré Langhorne with 18.7 seconds left in the first half. It was the first of two touchdown passes by Letteriello (7 of 11, 129 yards, one interception), who also found McNeil in the end zone for a 34-yard connection in the third quarter.


The Porters had extended their lead to 25-7 on their fourth play from scrimmage in the third quarter when Ted Stevens banged the ball in from two yards out.


Antoine Hunter added a three-yard scoring run, and that was followed up with a successful two-point pass from Mike Mangiamele to Mike Mundy, making the score 39-21 with 2 minutes 47 seconds left in the game.


“I didn’t know they had that good of a running game,” said Anthony Marone, a sophomore who scored all four of McGann-Mercy’s touchdowns, the first being a 22-yard interception return. In the second half, Marone (eight catches, 157 yards) caught three touchdown passes from Stepnoski (13 of 32, 195 yards, one interception) that covered 40, 30 and 37 yards.


“I wanted to win really bad,” said Stepnoski, who described the mood in his team’s locker room after the game as “depressed.”


Monarchs Coach Joe Read, whose team dropped its fifth straight game in a stretch going back to last year, said he could take solace in the belief that his young team is getting better. “In the locker room, I think the resolve is there to come back and win,” he said. “Nobody’s quitting.”


The Porters had faced tough opponents in their first three games — losses to the Hampton Bays Baymen, Mount Sinai Mustangs and the Babylon Panthers. Perhaps it was good preparation for their game against the Monarchs, though.


“It toughened us up because we can’t go the whole season without winning a game,” McNeil said. “We had to get one under our belts.”