MacArthur edges Calhoun, 21-20

Clinging to a one-point lead over visiting Calhoun with just under eight minutes remaining, MacArthur relied on its longtime bread-and-butter to seal an important Nassau Conference II football win in a rare Thursday night game.

Junior running back Jesse Seder and the Generals’ offensive line made sure the Colts’ dangerous offense never got back on the field. Seder carried nine times for 34 yards, including two key first-down runs, over the final 7:44 as MacArthur held on for a 21-20 victory before an overflow crowd for both sides.

Seder finished with 101 yards and two touchdowns on 25 carries and senior Cristian Perez had a touchdown reception, an interception and booted all three extra points as the Generals evened their record at 3-3 and took a big step towards qualifying for the playoffs. Calhoun slipped to 3-4.

“Jesse is a hard runner and he did a nice job keeping the chains moving and staying inbounds to force them to use their timeouts,” MacArthur head coach Bob Fehrenbach said of Seder, who capped the Generals’ opening possession with a 5-yard touchdown run following a fumble recovery on special teams by junior Kieran Dinkelman.

“It was nice to finish off the game the way we did,” he added. “We told the guys at halftime we needed to step up and make a statement to start the third quarter. The offense responded with a big touchdown drive.”

MacArthur led 14-12 at halftime thanks to a 10-yard touchdown pass from senior quarterback Alex Vargas to Perez. Vargas then busted a 42-yard run on the opening drive of the second half to set up Seder’s 1-yard score, upping the advantage to 21-12.

Calhoun scored on the first play of the fourth quarter on senior Brandon Sherman’s 2-yard touchdown run and added the two-point conversion to get within one, but the Colts managed only one first down on what was their final possession.

“Our guys battled like they do every week, but we left some plays on the field tonight,” Calhoun head coach Nick Rawls said. “We weren’t able to stop some things that were working for them, especially at the end. They did a great job controlling the clock and limiting our opportunities on offense.”

The Colts lit up the scoreboard in their three victories behind senior quarterback Joey Goodman, who in the second quarter hit senior Josh Edouard with a 42-yard touchdown pass and scored his 16th rushing touchdown of the year to give Calhoun a 12-7 lead in the second quarter. Goodman, behind an offensive line consisting of Dylan Grech, Tanner Kranmas, Paul Sansano, Ryan Hanlon and Tom Sansano, had 106 rushing yards on the night and needs 77 more in the finale against Jericho next Saturday to reach 1,000.

“Those guys can score and we wanted to keep their offense off the field as much as possible,” Fehrenbach said. “Our line [Jake Tripi, Ryan Sheehan, Jack Orlando, Dean Quitoni and Andrew Chizik] did a tremendous job and we broke a couple of long plays that helped.”

The Generals host Mepham for Homecoming next Saturday at 2 p.m.