Miller Place Panthers Prosper Under the Lights

The Miller Place Football team evened their record at 1-1 with an impressive home victory over the Tornadoes of Harborfields under the lights on Friday night.

The Panthers managed to control the tempo on both sides of the football and win in convincing fashion, 20-0.

"We purposely didn't want to use the term 'must-win' to describe this game," said Miller Place head coach, Ron Petrie, "but we definitely had something to prove and wanted to make a statment."

The Panthers did just that as they rebounded from a Sept. 10 defeat at Sayville.

Defense appeared to define the game in the early going for both teams, as the first quarter ended with no score. The Panthers finally strung together a scoring drive midway through the second quarter that was capped off by a 15-yard touchdown run by Miller Place quarterback, Matt Hinchy, to make the score 6-0.

The Panthers were then able to capitalize on a Harborfields pass interference penalty during their next posession and turned it into six points after Alex Greenidge powered into the endzone with a 2-yard run.

The half ended with Miller Place up 13-0. The Pathers added one more touchdown to their total at the six minute mark of the third quarter after an impressive drive, capped off by a touchdown run by Adin Greenfield, making the score 20-0 and proving to be the final points of the game.

Stellar defense was key to the Panthers dominance, as they limited Harborfields ball movement and crippled their passing game.

"We felt we had the advantage in the secondary against their receivers," coach Petrie said. "We wanted to force them to run. I give all credit to coach [Rich] Russo for drawing up all of our defensive schemes and forcing them to do what we wanted them to." 

Despite the one-sided victorty, Hinchy saw room for improvement. 

"I thought we played well, but we could have played better offensively," he said. "We look forward to improving this week as we get set to play Huntington."

The Panthers seek to continue their momentum as they travel to Huntington on Saturday, Sept. 24th.