The new look Patchogue Medford Raiders are going to experience some growing pains as a relatively young football team and a new head coach in Thomas Piccirillo will take some time to mesh.
Wednesday afternoon at Bay Shore High School was a positive step for the Raiders as they looked much better this week despite losing to the Marauders by a score of 20-16.
“It was a great back and forth football game and someone's gotta win,” said Coach Piccirillo. “Really what it came down to was they made more plays than we did. We are getting better every single day and our performance in this game was better than the one at Sachem North last week. We knew that building a program wasn't gonna happen overnight, building a program and a new culture wasn't gonna happen instantaneously. Our players are working hard and we're getting better. I'm proud of our coaches and players, but definitely not the result that we wanted.”
The Pat Med defense was solid all day as the team made some big plays early on including a turnover on downs on the first drive of the game and a safety on Bay Shore’s fourth drive of the game to cut the 7-0 lead to 7-2.
“I thought the defense played very well,” said Piccirillo. “They were stout, physical up front, and executed their assignments. We would have a player step up and make plays like making an interception or forcing a turnover.”
The Raiders went into halftime up 8-7 thanks in part to a touchdown pass by Junior Quarterback Brody Sorensen to Jacob Faison in the final moments of the second quarter.
“We have a lot of confidence in Brody (Sorensen) and I thought he did a really nice job,” said Coach Piccirillo. “He made a couple great throws including a touchdown pass to Faison. We also had a couple of passes that our receivers went up and caught. Our receivers are working really hard on the outside for him and I thought he completed some really nice screen passes for us too. That allowed us to get defense to guess a bit more and keep them off balanced. So all in all, I thought he played well and he did a good job leading for us.”
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“We saw that the game started to change towards the end of the fourth quarter where we got a little bit tired. That definitely hurt us a little bit. We kind of got a little worn down as the game went on, but we're gonna build on this experience moving forward.”
Patchogue Medford now drops to 0-2 but looks poised to put a crooked number into the win column this week as they will return home on September 22nd for their annual Support the Troops game. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:00 pm as the Raiders take on the Brentwood Indians with the pre-game festivities taking place before the 6:00 pm start.