Like five others, Long Beach\u2019s offense came up empty against Mepham\u2019s vaunted defense during the regular season.<\/p>\n
But in Sunday\u2019s rematch with much more on the line in a Nassau Conference II football semifinal, junior running back Brody Riedel reached the end zone four times as the third-seeded Marines advanced to their first county championship game since 1986 with a 27-13 victory at Hofstra University.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally feels amazing,\u201d said Riedel, who broke a scoreless deadlock with 7:32 remaining in the third quarter with a 31-yard scoring burst up the middle and added touchdown runs of 1, 70 and 30 yards in the fourth. \u201cOur coaches have been preaching discipline since the loss we had to Mepham,\u201d he added. \u201cWe prepared hard all week and to finally get that first touchdown against them gave us a lot of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riedel had 195 yards on 22 carries and also intercepted a pass as Long Beach (8-2) avenged a 24-0 loss to the second-seeded Pirates (8-2) Sept. 27 and will face juggernaut Garden City in the Conference II title game Saturday at noon at Hofstra.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe moved the ball well in the first half and hit on some throws before finally breaking through with the run game in the second half,\u201d Long Beach head coach Scott Martin said. \u201cBrody\u2019s a special player and he carried us on his back, but Mepham\u2019s a good team and it took a complete effort on our part.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big win for the program and we\u2019ll enjoy it for a little while before getting right back to work,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Top-seeded Garden City is riding a state-record 64-game win streak and defeated the Marines 31-16 in the season opener. The Trojans have three consecutive shutouts and haven\u2019t allowed double digits in points in nine straight since Week 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what we\u2019re up against, but we\u2019ve played them tough the last four times we\u2019ve met,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
Senior Mike Grizzard had a 4-yard pick-6 and junior Lucas Eagleston a 44-yard touchdown reception for the Pirates, who never led.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great game between two good teams,\u201d Mepham head coach Tom Mazeika said. \u201cIn the end they made more plays than we did. They deserved to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense ruled for both sides in the first half with Riedel (12 tackles) and Mepham junior Tyler Gaskin both picking off passes.<\/p>\n
Long Beach got on the board on its first possession of the second half after the defense forced a three-and-out. Senior quarterback Charlie Conway connected twice with junior Brody Juan (6 catches for 72 yards) for first downs and Riedel capped the drive following a key block from junior Gavyn Vicente and going the distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our ability to throw the ball loosed up their defense just enough for Brody to pop off some big runs,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
Grizzard\u2019s touchdown bailed out the Pirates after they turned the ball over at the Long Beach 1 with junior Vaughn Bogacki forcing and recovering a fumble.<\/p>\n
The Marines maintained a 7-6 lead thanks to a missed extra point and then marched 69 yards on 10 plays to extend it on a 1-yard touchdown run by Riedel off a direct snap from junior center Jack Muskin.<\/p>\n
Senior Jaden Flynn\u2019s first of two sacks spoiled Mepham\u2019s ensuing possession and it was quickly 20-6 after Conway took Muskin\u2019s next snap and handed off to Riedel, who made another house visit.<\/p>\n
When asked if Riedel would be driving the team bus back to Long Beach from Hofstra, Martin laughed and said \u201che just might.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like five others, Long Beach\u2019s offense came up empty against Mepham\u2019s vaunted defense during the regular season. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-56465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}