Fort Hamilton revisits 2010 championship team

At the recent Fort Hamilton-Boys High homecoming game, the Tigers honored their 2010 championship team, the last Fort Hamilton squad to win the citywide title.

That season was a transformative year for PSAL high school football, since it marked the end of Fort Hamilton’s six-year dominance and the rise of two rival Brooklyn teams. After 2010, Lincoln H.S. went on to dominate for the next five years, followed by the current rise to the top of the PSAL for Erasmus Hall. 

After winning championships in 2005 and 2006 and making playoff runs from 2007 to 2009, founding head coach Vince Laino (1990-2009) retired and promoted his defensive coordinator Dan Perez to succeed him.

Following in Laino’s footsteps, the rookie head coach led the Tigers to a 12-0 season, and Fort Hamilton met another local undefeated team on the rise, the 12-0 Lincoln Railsplitters, coached by Shawn O’Connor.

By luck of the draw, the squads didn’t play each other during the regular season, which set up an epic showdown between the first two undefeated high school teams to play at the new Yankee Stadium.

With both teams averaging at least 30 points a game during the regular season, these two Brooklyn powerhouses played a scoreless title game down to the last minute to play in the first half.

With seconds left in the second quarter, Lincoln quarterback Andrew Vital drove his team down to the three-yard line, where Kareem Folkes burst through the middle to put the Railsplitters ahead 6-0, followed by an unsuccessful two-point conversion attempt.  

Returning to play in the third quarter, the Tigers caught a break on Lincoln’s errant handoff exchange at midfield, where Tiger defender Lamont Williamson came up with the fumble.

Taking advantage of the new possession, Tiger quarterback Marvin Centeno drove the offense down to the 26-yard line on a series of rushes by Wesley Sumpter, where the junior QB subsequently hooked up with the team’s top receiver Brandon Reddish. After beating his coverage down-field, Reddish caught Centeno’s pass on the dead run to tie the game 6-6 near the end of the third quarter. With the game deadlocked, there was no question that Fort Hamilton’s next two-point conversion attempt would be the most crucial play of the game.

Anticipating a scenario like this, Coach Perez installed a new two-point conversion play during the week of practice that worked just as it was drawn up. With 3:12 left in the third quarter, Centeno started a play-action pass play by faking a hand-off to the left and then rolling to the right. Under intense pressure from two Lincoln defenders, Centeno managed to shovel an accurate chest pass to Dylan Campili, who was camped at the goal line for Centeno’s winning toss for the final 8-6 score and the championship.