Fort Hamilton swamps Flushing to begin 2015 season

Fort Hamilton 44 Flushing 0

After losing their first game of the season last year on the road to Curtis 12-6 and the next two subsequent games, the Fort Hamilton Tigers were focused on beginning the 2015 season with a win at Flushing Memorial Park. But after fumbling away the ball at midfield on their opening series, that goal was quickly placed in jeopardy. Fortunately the Tigers held the Red Devils’ advance on the turnover at the 18-yard line, the deepest that Flushing would get into Tiger territory for the rest of the first half.

Working from his own 18-yard line, Connor Fitzsimons brought the Tigers over the 50-yard line where the senior quarterback making his opening day debut as a starter found Keyshawn Robinson on a pass over the middle down to the 25-yard line as time ran out in the first quarter.

Resuming play in the second quarter, running back Noah Solano scampered the remaining 25 yards to score the Tigers’ first touchdown of the season. After getting the ball back on a punt from the Red Devils, Fitzsimons connected with linebacker Jayson Magnani as he checked in at tight end for the next score on a 30-yard roll out that took the Red Devil defense by surprise.

Marching his team downfield again, Fitzsimons this time found Shawn Tafe on a pass over the middle down to the one-yard line which set up a Troy Booker one-yard plunge to give the Tigers a comfortable 22-0 lead to end the first half.

Once the Tigers regained the ball for the first time in the third quarter, Booker scored again from the two-yard line after Fitzsimons hit Seba Nekhet on a 20-yard pass.

Mounting their final push to score, the Red Devils drove towards their end zone only to be intercepted by a leaping Blake Smaw. After the interception, Fitzsimons again connected with Nekhet, this time for a 30-yard touchdown pass to put the game out of reach for Flushing at 38-0.

Booker, the league’s leading scorer last season, put the icing on the cake for Fort Hamilton, scoring his third touchdown of the game at the end of the fourth quarter on a 10-yard run for the final score of 44-0.

After getting off to a poor 0-3 start last season, Fort Hamilton Coach Dan Perez stated, “Our guys bought in to getting a good start out of the gate this season, but I didn’t foresee such a big win over this Flushing team that has done so well recently.”

Commenting on some of his players’ performances Perez stated, “Noah Solano has become one of the team’s biggest playmakers both on offense and now on defense.  Quarterback Connor Fitzsimons performed well and showed he’d could take the reins to run the offense.”  As far as Booker’s three-touchdown performance, Perez revealed, “This game was pretty remarkable for Troy, considering that this was the first full contact since coming back from being banged up in summer camp.”