Playing before a large crowd of family and friends, the Garden City Thunder 10 Whites took on the undefeated and unscored upon Farmingdale eleven under the Friday night lights. Captains Conor Byrnes, Mike Cassano, Jack Connors and Anthony Velez called the coin toss as GC started out on defense. The Thunder tried an onside kick that was recovered by Farmingdale giving them excellent field position. The Farmingdale drive was thwarted, however, when Joey Burdi made a spectacular interception near the goal line and was a shoestring tackle away from returning it all the way.

The Thunder Road - Born to Run Offense started out on their own 5 yard line. Timmy Halaby at Quarterback and Jack Reina at Center spearheaded a sustained drive that featured first down runs by Danny Miller, Jack Connors and Kevin Mullen behind the blocking of Kieran Byrnes, Danny Dolan, Louie Pagonis, Brian Tully, Zach Stamoulis, Conor Byrnes, Anthony Kritis and Ryan Giacini. The drive, however, stalled at midfield.

The larger and faster Farmingdale team took over and began eating up chunks of real estate in spite of strong efforts by the No Surrender defense lead by Liam Fitzgerald, James Dutton, Thomas Reina, Connor Riedel, Anthony Velez, Mike Cassano, Conor Byrnes, Timmy Halaby, Danny Miller, Danny Dolan, Anthony Kritis, Brian Hughes, Kieran Byrnes, Kevin Mullen and Joey Burdi. Farmingdale broke off two long runs to take a 14 - 0 lead.

The Thunder struck back before the end of the half with some sleight of hand and misdirection by Timmy Halaby, Danny Miller and Kevin Mullen resulting in a Kevin Mullen 7 yard touchdown run.

Both teams played the Second Half like two heavyweight fighters trading blows in the middle of the ring and refusing to give in to the other competitor. Farmingdale finally broke through to make the final score Farmingdale 20 - Thunder 6.

In spite of the outcome there were certainly signs that better days (and nights) are ahead. Tommy Reina made an outstanding tackle when he came up hard, clean and fast with a hit that had the Farmingdale ball carrier dancing in the dark. Timmy Halaby took a licking and kept on ticking.

Given the level of competition, the Thunder put on a very strong performance. All of the players hung in and continued to play hard until the final whistle. We look forward to another big game against Massapequa on Saturday night. GO THUNDER!