Mepham takes down Calhoun

The Mepham football team proved its spring struggles were just an aberration.
The Pirates wrapped up a 6-win regular season last Saturday with a 43-21 win over rival Calhoun, the same team they beat in last spring’s opener before concluding the abbreviated campaign with four straight defeats. This season’s performance was more in line with the 2019 group that also won six games and advanced to the semifinals at Hofstra.
Senior quarterback Nick Honerkamp rushed for 106 yards and four touchdowns and threw for 225 yards for Mepham, which finished third in Conference II and will host No. 6 Valley Stream Central in the playoff opener.
“The kids rebounded nicely,” Mepham coach Anthony Cracco said of the season. “It was a rough spring. They came in kind of upset with the way they played and it was the driving force behind guys buying in and having a great offseason.”
Junior Dylan Dunn scored the only points of the first quarter with his 17-yard run and Honerkamp increased the lead to 13 with his 26-yard scamper in the second. Calhoun shrunk the deficit to five on quarterback Danny Goodman’s 60-yard scoring romp before Honerkamp ran it in from six yards and on the ensuing two-point conversion to give the Pirates a 20-7 lead at intermission.

Goodman made things close early in the third quarter with a 78-yard touchdown sprint, but Honerkamp added scoring runs of nine and two yards for a 34-14 advantage. The Pirate defense forced a safety and Dominick Novello ran for a 16-yard touchdown in the fourth to put the game away.
“[Calhoun] made a nice adjustment to the way we were playing defensively,” Cracco said. “I thought the kids responded real nicely and we moved the ball right down the field. But for the most part, we settled in and played well down the stretch.”
The win came after a 27-0 whitewashing of New Hyde Park, which solidified third place for the Pirates. Novello blocked a field goal late in the first half to set up Honerkamp’s eight-yard touchdown run and Michael Cucinella added a pick-six from 29 yards out in the third quarter.
“It might have been our most complete game of the season,” Cracco said. “We were playing a really good football team that was coming off three straight shutout [wins]. We came out from the start and played really, really well.”
Honerkamp had 16 rushing scores this season, including a season-high five in a 63-30 romp of Glen Cove on Sept. 25, and helped the Mepham offense average almost 34 points a game. He also had eight touchdown passes that went to Cucinella (4), Dunn and Ryan Thier (2 apiece).
Though the team has the talent to return to Hofstra, Cracco feels that looking past Valley Stream Central (3-4) would be foolhardy.
“We know we’re going to get a great effort out of them,” he said. “We’re excited for the opportunity to continue to redeem ourselves. Hopefully we can get a win and get a chance to play at Hofstra.”