Lynbrook punches playoff ticket

The Lynbrook football team proved the preseason prognosticators wrong.
Quarterback Michael Fagen rushed for a season-high 192 yards and scored two touchdowns during the decisive third quarter and threw for another score as the Owls punched their ticket to the postseason with a 33-6 win over Division in the team’s home finale last Saturday.
Ryan Shapiro caught a touchdown pass for the second straight week and Daniel Barrosso and Jalan Chambers added rushing scores for the Owls, the preseason No. 11 seed who have won three of four following a 1-2 start. A win this Saturday at Roosevelt (3-4) would push Lynbrook’s record to 5-3, the same mark it had when it missed the playoffs last fall.
“It’s really hard to make the playoffs as an 11 seed,” said first-year coach David Yaker. “The fact that we made it to the playoffs is an unbelievable testament to the hard work these kids have been putting in since June 8.”  
Lynbrook scored a season-high 47 points in its win over Valley Stream North the previous week, but the offense took a while to get going on Saturday as it gained 35 yards on its lone offensive snap in the first quarter, which ended with a fumble. 

“We knew Division was going to be tough,” Yaker said. “They generally have tough kids and we wanted to get out to a quick start. We were just behind the 8-ball a little bit.”
While the Owls’ bend-but-don’t-break defense – led by Tyler Denker’s 12 tackles and Frank Sifuro’s nine – was keeping the Dragon offense at bay, the offense finally got on the board midway through the second quarter on Fagen’s 20-yard strike to Shapiro to make it 6-0. Junior linebacker Craig Leczczak’s interception near midfield thwarted Division’s drive just before the break.
Yaker also recognized that his offense was getting confused with the Dragons’ blitz scheme during the first half, so he made some adjustments to his formations and offensive line assignments. The move would pay dividends.
Early in the third quarter, Lynbrook put together an 11-play drive capped by Barrosso’s seven-yard scamper that pushed the lead to 13-0. Fagen took over from there with scoring runs of 60 and 18 yards to put the game out of reach at 27-0 entering the fourth quarter.
A 60-yard pass from Cody Brush to Louis Mejias finally put Division on the board, but it couldn’t get any closer and Chambers capped the scoring with an eight-yard touchdown run on the game’s final play.
Fagen now has 1,217 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns with six scoring tosses. His 192 yards on Saturday were three more than he had against North and the season opener versus Glen Cove on Sept. 10.
“Michael is a special athlete,” Yaker said. “I had to ask him to do a lot. We’re running a true read-option offense and he was a receiver last year. To ask somebody to do that in their senior year is a really big ask, but he has embraced it. He’s just been phenomenal.”