{"id":56026,"date":"2025-11-30T02:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/56026\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T02:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T02:31:16","slug":"staten-island-hs-football-petrides-caps-best-season-in-school-history-with-psal-1a-championship-victory-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/56026\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Island HS football: Petrides caps best season in school history with PSAL 1A championship victory (photos)"},"content":{"rendered":"

BROOKLYN, N.Y.\u2014 Petrides head coach Dave Olah was surely freezing after a Gatorade bath on a chilly Saturday morning in Brooklyn, but he didn\u2019t seem to mind one bit as he celebrated his team\u2019s gritty 14\u20136 victory over East Harlem Pride in the PSAL 1A championship game \u2014 a win that capped the first perfect season (13-0) in school history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome; this doesn\u2019t get old. You saw what this team was made of today. The seniors stepped up like the leaders they are; it was a great game,\u201d Olah said, marking his second championship win as head coach.<\/p>\n

Petrides entered the title game with easy 34\u20130 and 30\u20130 wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals, but East Harlem made the Panthers work. The first half was a tale of missed opportunities for Olah\u2019s crew; a missed field goal, getting stuffed on 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line, and a dropped touchdown left 17 points on the board, resulting in a 6\u20130 halftime deficit.<\/p>\n

Still, Olah trusted his squad\u2019s resilience.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1\/15<\/p>\n

PSAL 1A Championship game: East Harlem vs. Petrides<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went in at halftime after we missed a field goal and we were inside the red zone twice and didn\u2019t capitalize on it, but felt good about it only being 6\u20130. So we knew we were there, and it was just going to take someone making a play,\u201d Olah shared.<\/p>\n

The big plays came indeed. <\/p>\n

On East Harlem\u2019s first drive of the second half, senior standout Michael Giordano recorded an interception, giving the Panthers their third turnover (Darien Niles had an interception and a fumble recovery in the first half). <\/p>\n

That set up QB David Lee (6\/11 passing, 82 yards, 1 TD) to hook up with WR Jaiden Brown for a 28-yard touchdown connection, giving Petrides its first lead at 7\u20136.<\/p>\n

But Giordano wasn\u2019t done. After recording yet another INT on a huge fourth-down play inside the Panthers\u2019 20, he scooped up a fumble caused by Jamel Kamara for a touchdown on the Pride\u2019s ensuing drive; he then made it 2\/2 on extra-point attempts to extend the lead to 14\u20136.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that I wish I felt two years ago when we lost in the championship, and now that we finally made it back my senior year, to end it off at 13\u20130 and win it, it\u2019s the best feeling in the world,\u201d Giordano, Petrides\u2019 all-time leader in reception TDs, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis means everything. Since my freshman year, everyone told me, \u2018Mike, leave Petrides,\u2019 but I never left; I always stuck it out because of my coaches, and I stayed all four years and finally won one,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Olah praised Giordano as one of the program\u2019s all-time greats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not often you get a kid who comes in as a freshman and plays four full years of varsity. We were lucky to have him. To see where he was as a freshman and the complete player he\u2019s become \u2014 he started as an offensive kid and matured into a true three-way player. He\u2019s a special teams guy, a defensive guy, and an offensive guy. It\u2019s just awesome to see. I know he really wanted this, and I\u2019m glad he was able to get it.”<\/p>\n

Even with Giordano\u2019s heroics, East Harlem still had a chance to tie the game with the ball and 1:30 remaining. That\u2019s when junior DB Jason Dennis capped an incredible defensive effort, recording the team\u2019s sixth turnover on an interception to seal the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefensively, they stepped up big today. We always talk about them being leaders on the defensive side, and we only gave up six points on a busted play. Outside of that, I thought the defense did their job; they were awesome today again,\u201d Olah shared.<\/p>\n

Offensively, senior RB Joshua Okwuabueze made a big impact despite not scoring, racking up 198 yards on 34 carries and consistently putting the Panthers in strong field position.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the second half, you saw what Josh is made of. He ran hard, didn\u2019t go down on first contact, and kept finishing runs. By the fourth quarter, it really started to wear on East Harlem. He was the catalyst of the offense,\u201d Olah said.<\/p>\n

\"PetridesPetrides head coach Dave Olah is all smiles after his team won the PSAL 1A championship game on Nov. 29, 2025.Michael O’Brien<\/p>\n

With a combination of a dominant defense and a relentless ground game, Olah found the right formula for the title, and finished the season unbeaten as the only football coach the Sunnyside school has ever known.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to win one game, let alone 13 straight, and this team just stepped up week after week and proved to the coaches that they were going to do what we asked them to do. They didn\u2019t quit at halftime. They came out and said, \u2018This is what we\u2019re going to do,\u2019 and they did it,\u201d said Olah, who concluded his 18th season with his second career PSAL crown. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROOKLYN, N.Y.\u2014 Petrides head coach Dave Olah was surely freezing after a Gatorade bath on a chilly Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-56026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}