Mepham football's defense dominates against Long Beach
Mepham's Will Braun celebrates after recovering a Long Beach fumble during a Nassau football game on Saturday in Bellmore. Credit: Neil Miller
As the weeks continue to pass, Mepham football's defense continues to look more and more menacing.
Behind four takeaways, three sacks and just 109 scrimmage yards allowed, Mepham defeated Long Beach, 24-0, in Bellmore on Saturday. Its defense has pitched eight shutouts over the past two years, including two in the first three weeks of the season.
It looked to be a defensive slugfest early, as Mepham (3-0) drove into the red zone, only for Long Beach linebacker Brody Juan to force a fumble that Zack Silva recovered. Mepham went three-and-out on its next drive, and Long Beach (1-2) followed by driving its offense toward midfield. In a scoreless game with not much going right for the Pirates’ offense, they needed a spark.
They got it.
On the third play of the second quarter, Tyler Gaskin jumped a corner route and picked off a pass to take back some energy. Two plays later, Mepham sophomore Adam Erlichman evaded pressure and hit Erijon Kraki over the middle, who took it 32 yards up the field. Another two plays later, Erlichman found Lucas Eagleston out of the slot to the left, and he broke a tackle before taking it in for the 14-yard touchdown.
Theoretically, that score was all Mepham needed, as its defense only picked up two first downs for the rest of the game.
“We get hyped on offense because we know with our defense, all we have to do is score because they’ve been the best part of our program,” Eagleston said. “Now, I think our offense is starting to click, too. I think our future looks really good.”
Toward the end of the first half, Will Braun recovered a muffed punt that led to a 28-yard field goal by Ryan Bayer. On the opening possession of the second half, Braeden Kehoe made an acrobatic, juggling catch on the sideline for an interception that set up a 37-yard scoring drive, culminating in a one-yard touchdown rush by Patrick Cloudman to make it 17-0.
With 4:40 left in the game, a third interception — this time by Mike Grizzard — secured the shutout. Grizzard played the game with a significant amount of wrapping around his left hand, as he was dealing with a re-aggravated pinkie injury stemming from the lacrosse season.
Generally, he is the offense’s top receiving option, but the injury barred him from catching the ball. So, he decided to play through the injury at cornerback, where his catching skills would not be required — or so he thought.
“I did not think I had a chance of catching a ball this week,” Grizzard said. “I was hyped. I was telling coaches they were scared to throw to me. I just wanted to get a ball, and I did.”
Erlichman fed off the defense’s dominance, as he finished 13-of-18 passing for 145 yards and two scores. As a sophomore, he has shown steady improvement through his first three varsity starts. Practicing against this vaunted defense every day has played a role in that.
“Our defense is one of the best in our conference, so that has helped,” Erlichman said. “They make our offense work 10 times harder than anyone else.”
Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.
